NEW YORK - 21 April 2008 - 430 words
Pope addresses UN
On Friday, Pope Benedict visited the
New York headquarters of the United Nations Organisation where,
on his arrival, he was welcomed by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general,
and Srgjan Kerim, current president of the General Assembly.
Benedict XVI is the third Pontiff to address the U.N. General
Assembly. Pope Paul VI did so on 4 October 1965, and John Paul
II on two occasions: 2 October 1979 and 5 October 1995.
Following a private meeting with the secretary general, the Holy
Father went to the General Assembly where he addressed representatives
of the 192 member States.
Excerpts from the Holy Father's address are given below:
"Through the United Nations, States have established universal
objectives which, even if they do not coincide with the total
common good of the human family, undoubtedly represent a fundamental
part of that good. The founding principles of the Organisation
- the desire for peace, the quest for justice, respect for the
dignity of the person, humanitarian co-operation and assistance
- express the just aspirations of the human spirit, and constitute
the ideals which should underpin international relations. ...
The United Nations embodies the aspiration for a 'greater degree
of international ordering', inspired and governed by the principle
of subsidiarity, and therefore capable of responding to the demands
of the human family through binding international rules and through
structures capable of harmonising the day-to-day unfolding of
the lives of peoples. This is all the more necessary at a time
when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus
that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated
to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for
interventions in the form of collective action by the international
community.
"Indeed, questions of security, development goals, reduction
of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment,
of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders
to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith,
respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest
regions of the planet. I am thinking especially of those countries
in Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins
of authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of
experiencing only the negative effects of globalisation.
In the context of international relations, it is necessary to
recognise the higher role played by rules and structures that
are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good, and therefore
to safeguard human freedom. These regulations do not limit freedom.
On the contrary, they promote it when they prohibit behaviour
and actions which work against the common good, curb its effective
exercise and hence compromise the dignity of every human person".
"Here our thoughts turn also to the way the results of scientific
research and technological advances have sometimes been applied.
Notwithstanding the enormous benefits that humanity can gain,
some instances of this represent a clear violation of the order
of creation, to the point where not only is the sacred character
of life contradicted, but the human person and the family are
robbed of their natural identity. Likewise, international action
to preserve the environment and to protect various forms of life
on earth must not only guarantee a rational use of technology
and science, but must also rediscover the authentic image of creation.
This never requires a choice to be made between science and ethics:
rather it is a question of adopting a scientific method that is
truly respectful of ethical imperatives.
"Recognition of the unity of the human family, and attention
to the innate dignity of every man and woman, today find renewed
emphasis in the principle of the responsibility to protect. ...
Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population
from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as
from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural
or man-made. If States are unable to guarantee such protection,
the international community must intervene with the juridical
means provided in the United Nations Charter and in other international
instruments. The action of the international community and its
institutions, provided that it respects the principles undergirding
the international order, should never be interpreted as an unwarranted
imposition or a limitation of sovereignty".
"The principle of 'responsibility to protect' was considered
by the ancient 'ius gentium' as the foundation of every action
taken by those in government with regard to the governed. ...
Now, as then, this principle has to invoke the idea of the person
as image of the Creator, the desire for the absolute and the essence
of freedom. The founding of the United Nations, as we know, coincided
with the profound upheavals that humanity experienced when reference
to the meaning of transcendence and natural reason was abandoned,
and in consequence, freedom and human dignity were grossly violated.
... When faced with new and insistent challenges, it is a mistake
to fall back on a pragmatic approach, limited to determining 'common
ground', minimal in content and weak in its effect.
"This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation
and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme
we are specifically focusing upon this year, which marks the sixtieth
anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ...
Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language
and the ethical substratum of international relations. At the
same time, the universality, indivisibility and interdependence
of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity.
It is evident, though, that the rights recognised and expounded
in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin
of the person, who remains the high-point of God's creative design
for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law
inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and
civilisations. Removing human rights from this context would mean
restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception,
according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could
vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different
cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks".
"The life of the community, both domestically and internationally,
clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees
that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve
to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development
and poverty, security and conflict. ... The merit of the Universal
Declaration is that it has enabled different cultures, juridical
expressions and institutional models to converge around a fundamental
nucleus of values, and hence of rights. Today, though, efforts
need to be redoubled in the face of pressure to reinterpret the
foundations of the Declaration and to compromise its inner unity
so as to facilitate a move away from the protection of human dignity
towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular
interests".
"Experience shows that legality often prevails over justice
when the insistence upon rights makes them appear as the exclusive
result of legislative enactments or normative decisions taken
by the various agencies of those in power. When presented purely
in terms of legality, rights risk becoming weak propositions divorced
from the ethical and rational dimension which is their foundation
and their goal. The Universal Declaration, rather, has reinforced
the conviction that respect for human rights is principally rooted
in unchanging justice, on which the binding force of international
proclamations is also based. This aspect is often overlooked when
the attempt is made to deprive rights of their true function in
the name of a narrowly utilitarian perspective. Since rights and
the resulting duties follow naturally from human interaction,
it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held
sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members
of society, and hence valid at all times and for all peoples".
"As history proceeds, new situations arise, and the attempt
is made to link them to new rights. Discernment, that is, the
capacity to distinguish good from evil, becomes even more essential
in the context of demands that concern the very lives and conduct
of persons, communities and peoples".
"Discernment, then, shows that entrusting exclusively to
individual States, with their laws and institutions, the final
responsibility to meet the aspirations of persons, communities
and entire peoples, can sometimes have consequences that exclude
the possibility of a social order respectful of the dignity and
rights of the person. On the other hand, a vision of life firmly
anchored in the religious dimension can help to achieve this,
since recognition of the transcendent value of every man and woman
favours conversion of heart, which then leads to a commitment
to resist violence, terrorism and war, and to promote justice
and peace. This also provides the proper context for the inter-religious
dialogue that the United Nations is called to support, just as
it supports dialogue in other areas of human activity".
"Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious
freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at
once individual and communitarian - a vision that brings out the
unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension
of the citizen and that of the believer. ... It is inconceivable,
then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves
- their faith - in order to be active citizens. It should never
be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights. The rights
associated with religion are all the more in need of protection
if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology
or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature. The
full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free
exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the
public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of
believers playing their part in building the social order".
"My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the
United Nations, and it is intended to express the hope that the
Organisation will increasingly serve as a sign of unity between
States and an instrument of service to the entire human family.
It also demonstrates the willingness of the Catholic Church to
offer her proper contribution to building international relations
in a way that allows every person and every people to feel they
can make a difference".
"The United Nations remains a privileged setting in which
the Church is committed to contributing her experience 'of humanity',
developed over the centuries among peoples of every race and culture,
and placing it at the disposal of all members of the international
community. This experience and activity, directed towards attaining
freedom for every believer, seeks also to increase the protection
given to the rights of the person. Those rights are grounded and
shaped by the transcendent nature of the person, which permits
men and women to pursue their journey of faith and their search
for God in this world. Recognition of this dimension must be strengthened
if we are to sustain humanity's hope for a better world and if
we are to create the conditions for peace, development, co-operation,
and guarantee of rights for future generations".
Having completed his address, the Holy Father met with the president
of the General Assembly and, subsequently, with the president
of the U.N. Security Council, a post currently held by Dumisani
Kumalo, South African ambassador.
Source: VIS
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