The Archbishop of York yesterday called for the release of a Scottish journalist kidnapped in Gaza.

In his Easter sermon, John Sentamu said BBC reporter Alan Johnston was not an "enemy" and should be freed immediately. Mr Johnston, 44, disappeared on March 12. He has been held in captivity for longer than any of the other 11 journalists abducted in the Gaza strip over the last three years.

"The fear of the West, so to speak, has played its part in the horrendous kidnap of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston," the Archbishop said.

"In God's name please release Alan Johnston. He is not your enemy. He is a symbol of ensuring that freedom of the press is not violated - an issue Palestinian journalists are too familiar with after facing routine attacks, harassment and arrests. Let the man free."

Mr Johnston has lived and worked in Gaza for the past three years. His car found abandoned, he was reportedly taken by masked gunmen as he returned to his apartment in Gaza City. So far no group has claimed responsibility for his kidnapping, or issued any demands.

Meanwhile, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland yesterday used his Easter message to urge Scots to take a bigger role in protecting the environment.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien described over-fishing, deforestation and pollution as among the planet's biggest challenges and said swapping a wasteful way of life with simple living was the best way of avoiding further destruction.

Cardinal O'Brien said: "We hear a great deal these days about climate change and we do well to heed the warnings about global warming that come to us almost daily. But we are mistaken if we consider climate change to be the only problem, imagining if we fly less, burn less fuel or plant more trees somehow the environmental damage will be corrected.

"Yes, we must fly less and burn less fuel and plant more trees but these things alone are not enough and climate change is not the only crisis we face.

"Massive and devastating environmental catastrophes continue, unaffected by climate change or carbon emissions, and we must take the whole picture into account when we consider the damage being done to our mother Earth."

The Cardinal also singled out the environmental impact of modern fishing methods. He said: "Technology allows us to fish in the deep oceans, never before accessible to us. Far from solving our problems with fishing, this is creating new and more catastrophic dangers because deep-sea fish stocks take longer to replenish than any others."

Speaking about Scotland's consumer culture, he said: "We take and use much more than our share and we cannot maintain this any longer. Quite simply, we must learn to live simply. By living simply we will do all that our Easter faith demands of us."

Pope Benedict XVI's Easter message pointed to the suffering in the world, including what he described as "continual slaughter" in Iraq and bloodshed in parts of Africa and Asia. The head of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics delivered his message outdoors at the Vatican for tens of thousands of people.

"How many wounds, how much suffering there is in the world," the Pope said, delivering his traditional Urbi et Orbi Easter address from the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica as pilgrims and tourists listened in the square.

The Pope read out a litany of troubling current events, and said he was thinking of the "terrorism and kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt to justify in the name of religion, of contempt for life, of the violation of human rights and the exploitation of persons".

He singled out what he called the "catastrophic and, sad to say, underestimated humanitarian situation" in Darfur as well as other African places of suffering, including violence and looting in Congo, fighting in Somalia and the "grievous crisis" in Zimbabwe.

The Pope added that only a negotiated solution could end the drawn-out, bloody conflict in Sri Lanka and said East Timor needs reconciliation ahead of elections.