Pope: Human rights first, even if it means going against the tide

Pope with refugees at General Audience

Source: Vatican Media

On Human Rights Day, Pope Francis made an appeal to "place human rights at the heart of all policies, including development cooperation policies, even when this means going against the tide."

These words came in a message to the International Conference: entitled "Human Rights in the Contemporary World: Achievements, Omissions, Negations" promoted by the Dicastery for Integral Human Development and the Pontifical Gregorian University. The two-day conference is being held to mark the 70th anniversary since the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 25th Anniversary since the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

In his message, read by Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, Pope Francis recognises that through the two documents being celebrated, "the family of Nations wanted to recognise the equal dignity of every human person". He explains that these rights are "universal, indivisible, interdependent and interconnected" and that they are rooted in the nature of the human person, as an "inseparable unity of body and soul"