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New York, 18 April 2008
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Mr President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As I begin my address to this Assembly, I would like first
of all to express to you, Mr President, my sincere gratitude
for your kind words. My thanks go also to the
Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, for inviting me to visit
the headquarters of this Organization and for the welcome
that he has extended to me. I greet the Ambassadors and
Diplomats from the Member States, and all those present.
Through you, I greet the peoples who are represented here.
They look to this institution to carry forward the founding
inspiration to establish a “centre for harmonizing the
actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends”
of peace and development (cf. Charter of the United Nations,
article 1.2-1.4). As Pope John Paul II expressed it in 1995,
the Organization should be “a moral centre where all the
nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared
awareness of being, as it were, a ‘family of nations’”
(Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on
the 50th Anniversary of its Foundation, New York, 5 October
1995, 14).
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 Organization – the desire for peace, the
quest for justice, respect for the dignity of the person,
humanitarian cooperation and assistance – express the just
aspirations of the human spirit, and constitute the ideals
which should underpin international relations. As my
predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II have observed from
this very podium, all this is something that the Catholic
Church and the Holy See follow attentively and with
interest, seeing in your activity an example of how issues
and conflicts concerning the world community can be subject
to common regulation. The United Nations embodies the
aspiration for a “greater degree of international ordering”
(John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 43), 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 harmonizing 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 globalization. In
the context of international relations, it is necessary to
recognize 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. In the name of
freedom, there has to be a correlation between rights and
duties, by which every person is called to assume
responsibility for his or her choices, made as a consequence
of entering into relations with others. 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. This has only recently been defined, but it was
already present implicitly at the origins of the United
Nations, and is now increasingly characteristic of its
activity. 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. On
the contrary, it is indifference or failure to intervene
that do the real damage. What is needed is a deeper search
for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring
every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and
encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or
desire for reconciliation.
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: at
the time when the concept of national sovereign States was
first developing, the Dominican Friar Francisco de Vitoria,
rightly considered as a precursor of the idea of the United
Nations, described this responsibility as an aspect of
natural reason shared by all nations, and the result of an
international order whose task it was to regulate relations
between peoples. 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 this happens, it threatens the objective
foundations of the values inspiring and governing the
international order and it undermines the cogent and
inviolable principles formulated and consolidated by the
United Nations. 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. This document was the outcome of a convergence of
different religious and cultural traditions, all of them
motivated by the common desire to place the human person at
the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society,
and to consider the human person essential for the world of
culture, religion and science. 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 recognized 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 civilizations. 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. This great variety of viewpoints must not be
allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are
universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of
those rights.
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 promotion of human
rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating
inequalities between countries and social groups, and for
increasing security. Indeed, the victims of hardship and
despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity,
become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then
become violators of peace. The common good that human rights
help to accomplish cannot, however, be attained merely by
applying correct procedures, nor even less by achieving a
balance between competing rights. 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. The Declaration was adopted as a “common standard
of achievement” (Preamble) and cannot be applied piecemeal,
according to trends or selective choices that merely run the
risk of contradicting the unity of the human person and thus
the indivisibility of human rights.
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. This intuition
was expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of
Hippo, one of the masters of our intellectual heritage. He
taught that the saying: Do not do to others what you would
not want done to you “cannot in any way vary according to
the different understandings that have arisen in the world”
(De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must
be respected as an expression of justice, and not merely
because they are enforceable through the will of the
legislators.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
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.
In tackling the theme of rights, since important situations
and profound realities are involved, discernment is both an
indispensable and a fruitful virtue.
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. Dialogue should be
recognized as the means by which the various components of
society can articulate their point of view and build
consensus around the truth concerning particular values or
goals. It pertains to the nature of religions, freely
practised, that they can autonomously conduct a dialogue of
thought and life. If at this level, too, the religious
sphere is kept separate from political action, then great
benefits ensue for individuals and communities. On the other
hand, the United Nations can count on the results of
dialogue between religions, and can draw fruit from the
willingness of believers to place their experiences at the
service of the common good. Their task is to propose a
vision of faith not in terms of intolerance, discrimination
and conflict, but in terms of complete respect for truth,
coexistence, rights, and reconciliation.
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. The activity of the United Nations in recent years
has ensured that public debate gives space to viewpoints
inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions,
including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of
information and the freedom to profess and choose religion.
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. Indeed, they actually do so, for
example through their influential and generous involvement
in a vast network of initiatives which extend from
Universities, scientific institutions and schools to health
care agencies and charitable organizations in the service of
the poorest and most marginalized. Refusal to recognize the
contribution to society that is rooted in the religious
dimension and in the quest for the Absolute – by its nature,
expressing communion between persons – would effectively
privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment
the unity of the person.
My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the
United Nations, and it is intended to express the hope that
the Organization 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. In a
manner that is consistent with her contribution in the
ethical and moral sphere and the free activity of her
faithful, the Church also works for the realization of these
goals through the international activity of the Holy See.
Indeed, the Holy See has always had a place at the
assemblies of the Nations, thereby manifesting its specific
character as a subject in the international domain. As the
United Nations recently confirmed, the Holy See thereby
makes its contribution according to the dispositions of
international law, helps to define that law, and makes
appeal to it.
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, cooperation, and guarantee of rights for
future generations.
In my recent Encyclical, Spe Salvi, I indicated that “every
generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous
search for the right way to order human affairs” (no. 25).
For Christians, this task is motivated by the hope drawn
from the saving work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Church
is happy to be associated with the activity of this
distinguished Organization, charged with the responsibility
of promoting peace and good will throughout the earth. Dear
Friends, I thank you for this opportunity to address you
today, and I promise you of the support of my prayers as you
pursue your noble task.
Before I take my leave from this distinguished Assembly, I
should like to offer my greetings, in the official
languages, to all the Nations here represented.
Peace and prosperity with God’s help!
Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
to the Staff of the United Nations
New York, 18 April 2008
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