A "New Creation" at the Nervi

First announced by the Vatican 16 months ago, earlier today the first of 2,400 solar panels went up on the roof of the Home Office's biggest energy guzzler: the 6,300-seat Paul VI Audience Hall:

Rome gets lots of sunshine, and engineers say the cells will produce enough electricity to illuminate, heat or cool the hall.

"With this plant, if it is working in about two weeks we avoid 210 tons of carbon dioxide and this is the equivalent to 70 tons of oil," said Andre Koekenhoff, from Thermovolt, the company installing the panels.

The solar panels were donated by SolarWorld, based in Bonn, Germany. The company's CEO gave the panels a Bonn-based company called SolarWorld. The company's CEO decided to give the solar project as a gift to the German-born pope.

According to Catholic News Service, the solar panels and inverters are worth nearly $1.5 million and should work without much maintenance for 25 years.

In his first major talk during July's World Youth Day in Sydney, the Pope dropped not a few jaws for prominently working the green thread into the circle of life.

Especially amid these polarized days of "false idols and piecemeal responses," the talk's fulltext is well-worth a refresher-read.

PHOTO: AP/Riccardo DaLuca

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