LONDON — The Archbishop of Canterbury issued an outspoken attack on the “greed” consuming the world’s civilized nations yesterday, warning against the rush for oil, power, and territory.

In his Easter Day sermon, Dr. Rowan Williams said the “comforts and luxuries” people took for granted could not be sustained forever and forecast that civilization would one day collapse.

He told worshippers at Canterbury Cathedral that while modern culture struggled with the idea of death, Christians must prepare for it by constantly striving to let go of “selfish, controlling, greedy habits.”

The Archbishop continued: “We face a culture in which the thought of death is too painful to manage. “Individuals live in anxious and acquisitive ways, seizing what they can to provide a security that is bound to dissolve, because they are going to die.

“Societies or nations do the same. Whether it is the individual grabbing the things of this world in just the repetitive, frustrating sameness that we have seen to be already in fact the mark of an inner deadness, or the greed of societies that assume there will always be enough to meet their desires — enough oil, enough power, enough territory — the same fantasy is at work.

“We shan’t really die. We as individuals can’t contemplate an end to our acquiring, and we as a culture can’t imagine that this civilization, like all others, will collapse and that what we take for granted about our comforts and luxuries simply can’t be sustained indefinitely. To all this, the Church says, somberly, don’t be deceived: night must fall.”

Meanwhile at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI used his Easter message to call for “solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good” in Tibet, the Middle East, and Africa.

Tens of thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims turned out to hear the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message.

The pontiff said: “How can we fail to remember certain African regions, such as Darfur and Somalia, the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, and finally Tibet, all of whom I encourage to seek solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good.”