Cardinal Bertone on Human Rights
Feb 13, 2009
As previously noted, last week saw the delivery of a major programmatic address on human rights, diplomacy and church-state relations by Benedict XVI's top lieutenant on his official visit to Spain.
Whispers in the Loggia, Thursday, February 12, 2009
Cardinal Bertone on Human Rights
As previously noted, last week saw the delivery of a major programmatic address on human rights, diplomacy and church-state relations by Benedict XVI's top lieutenant on his official visit to Spain.
Despite its backdrop -- namely, a tense domestic situation that's seen the Spanish hierarchy clash with the governing Socialists over the latter's progressive agenda, most prominently in the realm of marriage and family life -- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone explicitly noted that his reflection on the 60th anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights was not intended solely for a Spanish audience.
Even so, no one should be surprised that the Holy See issued no translations to aid its spread along. But as it is an extension of -- and a practical complement to -- the Pope's own address to the UN General Assembly last April at the body's New York headquarters, and given the similarities of things Spanish and American in the church-state sphere today, some might find the text's pointers rather useful in English as a glean on the Vatican's authoritative mind. And now, gratefully, it can be found in full in the viewer below.
Before delving in, though, as translating a 5,500-word text full of geopolitical and doctrinal thickets is no mean task, we all owe just as hefty a debt of gratitude to the true genius whose work made it possible: Christine Neulieb, a veteran of the Mothership now wrapping up a Ph.D in ancient Greek philosophy at the Catholic University of America... and one of the crew of fellow twenty-somethings who keep your narrator thinking, feeling and inspired.
Here in full, the Madrid address of the "Vice-Pope":
Human Rights in the Magisterium of Benedict XVI
On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone SDB
Secretary of State to His Holiness
Spanish Episcopal Conference, Madrid
4 February 2009
Eminences,
Royal Highnesses,
Excellencies,
Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you for the invitation to take part in this event that commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, and that should be considered a moment of fundamental importance for the development of the moral conscience of humanity, in conformity with the dignity of the person. It highlights, once more, the importance the Holy See gives to the recognition and protection of the fundamental rights of the human person, as well as the commitment of Catholics to the defense and promotion of human rights.
I am the bearer of a cordial greeting and blessing to all of you from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who I know awaits with eagerness the celebration in Spain of World Youth Day, which will be held in Madrid in August 2011. The Holy Father encourages you to prepare with enthusiasm for such a significant event, of great importance for all the youth of the world.
I want to express my gratitude to Antonio Maria Cardinal Rouco Varela and the Spanish Bishops Conference, for the organization of this significant event, which also offers me the opportunity to visit Spain again.
The Church has taken the question of human rights very seriously. The desire for peace, the search for justice, respect for the dignity of the person, and humanitarian aid and cooperation all express the just aspirations of the human spirit. In this sense, the words Pope Benedict XVI directed to the General Assembly of the United Nations last April 18 still echo for us: that the Universal Declaration “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.”
1. The contributions of Christianity and of the social teaching of the Church
Human rights were born in western European culture from an undoubtedly Christian origin. This is no coincidence. Christianity inherited from Judaism the conviction, expressed on the first page of the Bible, that the human being is the image of God. And so the Church has made its own contribution, both in reflecting on human rights in the light of the Word of God and of human reason, and also in its commitment to being a prophetic voice, which has made it a tireless defender of the dignity of man and of his rights in these sixty years that separate us from the Declaration of 1948.
The Supreme Pontiffs have expressed on many occasions the Catholic Church’s appreciation for the great worth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Paul VI, during his visit to the United Nations, October 4, 1965, after voicing his conviction that “the UN represents the obligatory path of modern civilization and of world peace,” expressed himself this way before the representatives of the nations: “what you proclaim here are the fundamental rights and duties of man, his dignity and freedom and, above all, religious freedom.”
John Paul II addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on two occasions. On the first, October 2, 1979, regarding the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, he affirmed that this document “is a milestone on the long and difficult path of the human race.”
On his second visit, October 5, 1995, John Paul II recalled that “there are indeed universal human rights, rooted in the nature of the person, rights which reflect the objective and inviolable demands of a universal moral law. These are not abstract points; rather, these rights tell us something important about the actual life of every individual and of every social group. They also remind us that we do not live in an irrational or meaningless world. On the contrary, there is a moral logic which is built into human life and which makes possible dialogue between individuals and peoples.”
The Holy Father Benedict XVI,1 addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations and calling to mind in particular the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration, said that “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,” and then went on to remind us that “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.”
The Catholic Church, which “by virtue of the Gospel committed to her, proclaims the rights of man [and] acknowledges and greatly esteems the dynamic movements of today by which these rights are everywhere fostered,”2 has seen in the Declaration, in accordance with the pontifical magisterium, a “sign of the times,” considering it “a step in the right direction, an approach toward the establishment of a juridical and political ordering of the world community.”3
2. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The serious concerns of the world after the end of the Second World War, whose grave consequences are well-known, marked a turning point in the moral awareness of the world’s nations and in our own recent history. This awareness came to fruition in San Francisco, with the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, August 5, 1945, which formulated the principle of an international approach to the protection of human rights and fundamental liberties. Three years later, December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration was adopted, with the backing of an overwhelming majority of the 58 countries that then constituted the UN. It was the fruit of intense work, propelled by the circumstances and disasters that the war had brought to the people of Europe in the twentieth century.
All people live in a framework of dreams and realities. Today, they all aspire to a life where peace and justice reign. When they defend a right, they are not asking for a favor; they simply claim what is due to them in virtue of being human. For this reason these are called natural rights, innate, inviolable, and inalienable, values written into the human being. Because of their profound meaning and their rootedness in human nature itself, human rights are prior and superior to all positive rights. And so political power remains subordinated, in its turn, to the moral order, to which the rights of man belong.
This Declaration represents the written expression of the foundations on which the law of the nations is based, the laws of humanity and the dictates of public conscience adapted to the spirit of the third millennium. Problems have stopped being national, and we must also expect their just solutions to become international. All this presupposes a progress of humanity and, in this regard, the Declaration has become a universal reference point for justice on a global scale.
On the occasion of the concert organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Holy Father Benedict XVI,4 after recalling that this document “still today constitutes a highly respected reference point in the intercultural dialogue on human rights and freedom,” said that “human rights . . . are ultimately founded in God the Creator, who has endowed everyone with intelligence and freedom. If this solid ethical basis is ignored, human rights remain fragile because they are deprived of a sound foundation.”
The celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Declaration constitutes, then, an occasion to verify the extent to which the ideals accepted by the greater part of the international community in 1948 are respected today in the various national legislatures and, moreover, in the consciences of individuals and of communities.
3. Natural Law
When the Magisterium of the Church speaks of human rights it does not forget to found them in God, the source and guarantee of all rights, but neither does it forget to root them in natural law. Human consensus is never the source of rights, however notable it might be. Benedict XVI, in his message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, teaches that “recognition and respect for natural law represents the foundation for a dialogue between the followers of the different religions and between believers and non-believers.” The natural law appeals to our reason and our freedom, because it is itself the fruit of truth and freedom: the truth and freedom of God. Society has a need for rules that are in accordance with human nature, but also the need of fraternal relations.
A positivist interpretation that would reduce justice to legality and understand human rights as exclusively the result of legislative measures will not suffice. Benedict XVI insisted on this same idea at the concert organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, to which I referred earlier, saying that “the natural law, engraved by God in the human conscience, is a common denominator of all men and all peoples. It is a universal guide that all can recognize and on the basis of which all can understand one another.”
4. Dignity of Man
The Second Vatican Council reaffirms it many times: man has today an ever-increasing consciousness of the dignity of the human person.5 Human rights are presented today as a means of grasping the dignity of the person, and as a necessary impetus for its promotion in society and for the establishment of justice and peace at all levels. Human dignity is as it were the cornerstone of the whole Universal Declaration, which begins with these words: “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” Freedom, justice, and peace are the three great human values that had to be recovered once and for all. The fifth paragraph of the preamble explains that “the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men
and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
The Church, following the dictates of her own social teaching, which is designed to draw on what is in conformity with the nature of every human being, “feels that she has the duty” – in the words of Benedict XVI – “to awaken in society moral and spiritual strength, helping to open wills to the authentic demands of the good.”
5. Universality, indivisibility, and protection
Contrary to the predictions of skeptics, this Declaration, which was not binding, went on to demonstrate its moral force. It became the main inspiration of the human rights movement in all countries, and continues to be the most important point of reference for debates about human rights at the international level. The current Roman Pontiff, in perfect continuity with the thought of his predecessor, underlines the fact that human rights are universal and apply to all in virtue of the common origin of the person. In reality, the note of universality is inherent in the proper conception of human rights: if human rights are those which belong to human beings solely in virtue of their humanity, it is evident that they must be recognized in everyone who is human (cf. Preamble to the Universal Declaration and articles 2 and 6). The recognition of universality pertains, then, to the very essence of human rights.
The Holy Father Benedict XVI also emphasizes indivisibility, which constitutes an essential element of human rights, on the same level as universality. And he explains it with a phrase that contains profound meaning: “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.”6
The Holy Father highlights, first of all, the responsibility incumbent on the state: every state has the primary duty of protecting its own population against violations of human rights. That is to say, it must take an active role in the defense and protection of rights, to the point that this is its essential mission. And if the state fails in the exercise of this responsibility, the international community must assume it: “If States are not capable of guaranteeing this protection, the international community must intervene by the juridical means laid out in the Charter of the United Nations and other international mechanisms.” Thus, “human rights must be respected as an expression of justice, and not just because they can be enforced by the will of legislators.”
6. Rights that are recognized
In our times, there is an ongoing, radical process of redefining individual human rights according to very sensitive and crucial themes, such as the family, the rights of children and of women, etc. We should insist that human rights are “above” politics and also above the “nation-state.” They are truly supra-national. No political minority or majority can change the rights of those who are most vulnerable in our society or the human rights inherent in every human person. As Vatican II teaches, “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth.”7
The juridical protection of human rights should therefore be a priority for each state. In the words of Benedict XVI: “Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics. Politics is more than a mere mechanism for defining the rules of public life: its origin and its goal are found in justice, which by its very nature has to do with ethics.”8 In this way the Pope reminds us that there cannot exist a social order or just state if justice is not respected, and justice can only be realized by first respecting human rights and the natural dignity of every man, of every human person, regardless of their phase of life.
7. Right to life
The dignity of the human being, the key theme of the whole social teaching of the Church, implies, among other things, respect for life from conception to natural death. The Christian should love and desire life, as a path to God. Benedict XVI, at the Day for Life of the Italian Bishops Conference,9 recalled that “Life, which is the work of God, should not be denied to anyone, not even to the smallest and most defenseless, not even if grave disabilities are present.” In the same way, we cannot “fall into the deception of thinking that we can dispose of life as we please, to the point of legitimizing its interruption, perhaps under the guise of human mercy. Therefore, it is necessary to defend it, guard it, and value its unique and unrepeatable character.”
In the right to life, we find ourselves confronting a scenario that is completely new in relation to the time period when the Universal Declaration was adopted, above all due to the development of science and technology, with their numerous technological instruments for deciding about life and death. It is necessary, then, to recover the full sense of the welcome due to life.
Benedict XVI, during his visit to the United Nations,10 referred to scientific advances and their limits: “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.” In this sense, one should recall, together with so many researchers and scientists, that the new frontiers of bioethics do not impose a choice between science and morality, but rather require the moral use of science.
In another context, the Holy Father has recalled that freedom cannot be “invoked to justify certain excesses,” which can lead to “a regression in the conception of the human being,”11 especially in questions like life and the family. The Pope, after deploring once more the continual attacks made against human life on every continent, expressed his conviction that “a culture of life,” especially as regards the defense of life and of the family, “could refresh the entire personal and social existence.”
8. Family and education
The family is an institution the state must protect. In the majority of international pacts and conventions, the right of the family to protection by society and the state is recognized. (Universal Declaration, 16.3)
“The family constitutes the primary and vital cell of society, on which its health and strength depend. It makes sense that society should be the first to be interested in developing a culture that makes the family its secure bond, since family is the first and most important shared journey of man, who comes to the world in the shelter of a family, which gives him his own existence as a human being.”12 It can never be forgotten that the family is the fertile source of life, that which is a primordial and irreplaceable precondition for the individual happiness of spouses, the formation of children, and societal well-being, and even the material prosperity of the nation.
The Church proclaims that family life is founded on the marriage of a man and a woman, united by an indissoluble bond, freely contracted, and open to human life in all its stages. It is the place of encounter between generations and of growth in human wisdom.
In the family, affirms the Pope on commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem,13 “the woman and the man, thanks to the gift of maternity and paternity, together carry out an irreplaceable role in regard to life. Children from their conception have the right to be able to count on their father and mother to take care of them and to accompany their growth. The State, for its part, must uphold with appropriate social policies everything that promotes the stability and unity of matrimony, the dignity and responsibility of couples, their rights and irreplaceable duty as educators of their children.” Legislative and administrative measures must also be adopted that will give families the support they need to exercise their inalienable rights, in order to fulfill their extraordinary mission.
With respect to the equal dignity of men and women, the Holy Father spoke of how there still persists a mentality that ignores the newness of Christianity: “There are places and cultures where women are discriminated against or undervalued for the sole fact of being women, where recourse is made even to religious arguments and family, social and cultural pressure in order to maintain the inequality of the sexes, where acts of violence are consummated in regard to women, making them the object of mistreatment and of exploitation in advertising and in the consumer and entertainment industry. Faced with such grave and persistent phenomena the Christian commitment appears all the more urgent so that everywhere it may promote a culture that recognizes the dignity that belongs to women, in law and in concrete reality.”14
The family is the true school of humanity and of perennial values, the primary place for the education of the person. In this sense, it should be noted that it is to the family, and more concretely, to parents, that the task of education primarily belongs, by natural right. Their right to choose an education for their children in accordance with their own ideas and, especially, in accordance with their religious convictions, must be respected. Regarding this matter and, in particular, regarding religious instruction in schools, Benedict XVI has said that it is “an inalienable right of parents to ensure the moral and religious education of their children.” Thus, religious instruction in public centers does not conflict with the principle of separation between church and state, because it does not presuppose adherence nor, for that matter, identification of the state with the teachings and morality that are integrated into the content of this material.
Likewise, this type of instruction does not violate the right of students and parents to religious freedom, owing to its voluntary character.
9. Religious freedom. Relations with the political community.
Absolute respect for human dignity implies the defense and promotion of the rights of man, and calls for a recognition of his religious dimension. Religious freedom (Declaration, article 18), as a primary and inalienable right of the person, sustains the other freedoms. It is their raison d’etre. Religious freedom goes beyond the boundaries that try to limit it to a tiny sphere, to a mere freedom of worship or to an education inspired by Christian values. It asks from civil society the freedom for religious faiths to exercise their mission. Likewise, it is fundamental to understand religious liberty as the primary and indispensable condition for peace. These are cornerstones of the edifice of human rights, basic elements of the common good and of solidarity. Peace is rooted in freedom and openness to the truth.
The democratic state cannot be neutral with respect to this religious freedom, but rather, just as it respects other public freedoms, it must recognize religious freedom and create the conditions for its full and effective exercise on the part of all citizens. And precisely in virtue of this respect and this positive engagement on behalf of religious freedom, there must be, in turn, absolutely impartial respect of all the varied individual choices of religion that the citizens make when they exercise this freedom. To try to impose, as secularism does, a practice of faith or religion that is strictly private, is to make a caricature of what the practice of religion actually is. And it is, of course, an inherent element of the rights of persons to live out their religious beliefs as they desire or as the beliefs themselves demand.
Benedict XVI15 reminded the participants of the 56th National Congress of Italian Jurists that “In the light of these considerations, this is certainly not an expression of secularity, but its degeneration into secularism, hostility to every important political and cultural form of religion; and especially to the presence of any religious symbol in public institutions.” Nor is it a sign of “healthy secularity” to “refuse the Christian community and its legitimate representatives the right to speak on the moral problems that challenge all human consciences today, and especially those of legislators and jurists. Thus, it is not a question of undue meddling by the Church in legislative activity that is proper and exclusive to the State but, rather, of the affirmation and defence of the important values that give meaning to the person's life and safeguard his or her dignity. These values are human before being Christian, such that they cannot leave
the Church silent and indifferent. It is her duty to firmly proclaim the truth about man and his destiny.” Ultimately, without God man is lost; the exclusion of religion from society’s life, and in particular the marginalization of Christianity, undercuts the very foundations of human community, because these foundations belong to the moral order before the socio-political order.
The Church respects the rightful autonomy of temporal realities, but asks the same attitude of respect for its own mission in the world and for the various personal and social manifestations of its faithful, who to a great extent are builders of community solidarity and an ordered common life. The state cannot claim to have domain, directly or indirectly, over the innermost convictions of people’s hearts, nor can it impose or impede the public practice of religion, above all when religious liberty contributes in a decisive way to the formation of citizens who are authentically free.
“The Church” – in the words of Benedict XVI – “does not claim the prerogative of the State. She does not wish to take its place. She is a community built on certain convictions; she is aware of her responsibility for the whole and cannot remain closed within herself. She speaks freely, and enters into dialogue with equal freedom, in her desire to build up a shared freedom... Thanks to a healthy collaboration between the political community and the Church, made possible through an acknowledgment and respect for the independence and autonomy of each within their particular spheres, a service is rendered to mankind which aims at his full personal and social development.”16
Unfortunately, Benedict XVI tells us, religious freedom is far from being effectively assured everywhere: in certain cases it is denied for religious or ideological motives; in others, although recognized in theory, it is suppressed in reality by a political power or, in a more subtle manner, by the cultural predominance of agnosticism and relativism.17
The Holy Father, in his address before the General Assembly of the United Natinos, to which I have referred several times, said that “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.” In addition, the Holy Father continued, “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.”
In this sense, “without wishing to become a political subject, the Church, with the independence of her moral authority, aspires to loyal and open cooperation with all who are responsible for the temporal order in the noble plan of building a civilization of justice, peace, reconciliation and solidarity, and those other norms that can never be abolished or left at the mercy of partisan consensus, since they are engraved in the human heart and correspond to the truth.”18 That is why, the Pope went on, “God's presence both in the conscience of each person and in the public sphere gives firm support to respect for the person's fundamental rights and firmly supports the construction of a society founded on them.” The only objective of the Church is to serve man, taking inspiration, as a supreme rule of conduct, from the words and example of Jesus Christ, who “went about doing good and healing all.” (Acts 10:38)
Before concluding this discussion of the relation between the democratic order and religious freedom, it is necessary to make a clarification.
Often, the principle of equality with respect to different religious faiths is understood as the uniformity of their juridical treatment on the part of civil law. This is not a correct interpretation: the principle of equality is violated if equivalent situations are treated in different manners, but it is also violated if different situations are treated in the same manner.
The principle of equality therefore requires that, on the part of state regulations, there should be a legal treatment of religious faiths that respects their unique aspects, keeping in mind the established cultural and historical roots that each one has in the society.
10. Conclusions
Historically speaking, the greatest wisdom of the Universal Declaration was its solemn affirmation, before all humanity, that peace among nations, after two terrible world wars, would have to be sought based on international cooperation and the building of a more fraternal world with unconditional respect for the dignity of the human person and his fundamental liberties. Human rights, whose efficacy should be guaranteed in an immediate elevation of the dignity of the human person, are universal, inviolable, and immutable. Ultimately, the Universal Declaration represents the written expression of the principles on which the law of the nations is founded, the laws of humanity and the dictates of public conscience adapted to the spirit of the third millennium.
Without a doubt, a lot of ground has been covered, but there is still a long way to go: hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters witness their rights to life, liberty, and security being threatened; the equality of all people is not always respected nor the dignity of each individual, and new barriers are raised up for motives of race, religion, political opinion, or other reasons.
Nevertheless, in all cases, the human community is called to go beyond mere justice, manifesting its solidarity with the poorest peoples, with concern for a better distribution of wealth, above all in times of grave economic crisis. The historical experience of humanity, and specifically of Christianity, must remind us, with Benedict XVI, that “the future of humanity cannot depend on mere political compromise,”19 but must be a consequence of recognizing the dignity of the human person, male and female, with the goal of creating adequate conditions for a life carried out in the fullness of the society in which it is lived. For her part, the Church makes every possible effort to contribute to the welfare of all, sometimes in difficult situations. Her greatest desire is to continue tirelessly offering this service to humanity, to each human being, without any discrimination.
The Church rejoices in the growing global concern for the protection of human rights, which belong to each person in virtue of his or her natural dignity, from the very moment of conception in the mother’s womb to natural death.
This is why it is necessary to safeguard the dignity of the human person, and to advocate a broad vision of societal relations that includes the Church-State dialogue, reinforces the need for collaboration with civil institutions to safeguard the integral development of the person and the right to religious freedom, facilitates the free exercise of the evangelizing mission of the Church, and points out the duty of society and of the state to guarantee a space where believers can live and celebrate their beliefs. In this context, the Church asks with respect to her mission in the world, manifested in various individual and common forms, the same attitude of respect and autonomy that she gives to temporal realities.
As for the commitment of the Church on behalf of human rights, there can be a misunderstanding: of conceiving of the Church as a type of human institution. In reality, the commitment of the Church to human rights is not a sign of secularization. This has been amply clarified in the addresses of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI at the United Nations, which I have just recalled. The commitment of the Church to human rights has its rationale precisely, inherently, in its own mission: the Church’s solicitude for humanity is inscribed in her essence. One could say that the ultimate and fundamental motive for which the Church is interested in human rights is of an ethical and religious order.
I would like to close my address with the words of Benedict XVI, from the Angelus of Sunday, December 7, 2008: “For the peoples worn out by poverty and hunger, for the hosts of refugees and for all who are suffering grave and systematic violations of their rights, the Church stations herself as a sentinel on the lofty mountain of faith and proclaims: ‘Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God comes with might’ (Is 40: 10).”
Thank you.
1Visit to the United Nations, 4/18/2008.
2Second Vatican Council, Constitution Gaudium et spes, 41.
3John XXIII, Encyclical Pacem in terris, 75.
4Benedict XVI, 12/10/2008.
5Second Vatican Council, Constitution Gaudium et spes, part 1, ch. 1, n. 12-22; Declaration Dignitatis humanae, preface, on religious freedom.
6Benedict XVI, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, 4/18/2008.
Cardinal Bertone on Human Rights