Pope Benedict XVI’s
Address to the U.N. General Assembly
Published: April 19, 2008
Following is the text of Pope Benedict XVI’s
address to the United Nations General Assembly on
April 18, as supplied by the Vatican and
checked against delivery. The remarks were delivered partly in French and
partly in English.
[In French]
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 deep
gratitude for your kind words. My thanks go also to the Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, who has
invited me to visit the headquarters of this Organization and to thank him for
the welcome he has given me. I greet the Ambassadors and Diplomats of Member
States, and all those present. Through you, I send greetings the peoples whom
you represent here. They expect 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 in
1995, the Organization must be "a moral center 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 fully coincide
with the total well-being of the human family, nevertheless represent a
fundamental part of it. The founding principles of the Organization — the
desire for peace, the quest for justice, respect for the dignity of the
individual, and humanitarian cooperation and assistance — express the just
aspirations of the human spirit, and constitute the ideals which must underlie
international relations. As my predecessors Paul VI and John
Paul II have observed from this very podium, this is all part of the realities that the Catholic Church and the Holy See regard attentively and with
interest, seeing in your activity an example
of how problems and conflicts affecting the world community can benefit from common settlement. 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 in the current context,
when we are witnessing the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that
continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of
a small number, while the world’s problems require from the international
community that it act on a common basis.
Indeed, questions of security, the
development goals, the reduction of inequalities, both locally and globally,
the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require that all international
leaders act together
and show a readiness to work in good faith, in respect of the rule of law, to
promote solidarity in the most fragile regions of the planet. I am thinking
especially of those countries in Africa and on other continents which are still
excluded from authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of
experiencing only the negative effects of globalization. In the context of
international relations, we must 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 behavior and
actions which work against the common good, curb its effective exercise and
hence compromise the dignity of every human being. In the name of liberty,
there has to be a correlation between rights and responsibilities, on the basis
of which every individual is called to shoulder responsibility for his or her
choices, while taking into account relations with other people. Here our
thoughts turn also to the way the results of scientific research and
technological advances have sometimes been used. While recognizing the immense
benefits that humanity can draw from them, some of the uses constitute 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 of its institutions, provided that it respects the principles the underlie 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.
(Page 2 of 3)
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, we all know, coincided with
earth-shaking upheavals that humanity suffered when the 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. In the face of new and
insistent challenges, it would be 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 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. This document was the fruit 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. Just like their universality,
the 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.
[In English]
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.
(Page 3 of 3)
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 favors 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 practiced, 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
a 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.
[in English; in French; in Spanish;
in Arab; in Chinese; in Russian:]
Peace and Prosperity with God’s help!
*The ROMAN CATHOLIC ‘MOTHER’(REV
17:5*) CHURCH- ‘EXPERIENCE “OF HUMANITY”(?!)
developed(?!) OVER the CENTURIES among peoples of EVERY RACE and CULTURE’- INCLUDES ALL the following.
HER ‘EXPERIENCE’ of the INQUISITIONS,
RUN BY the ANTICHRIST HOLY(?)
SEE! Because FIRST the HOLY(?) SEE worked
lovingly(?!) WITH ANTICHRIST
‘KINGS OF THE EARTH’(REV 19:19*), to MAKE ANTICHRIST LAWS(?!)
to REIGN OVER the KINGS NATIONS! THEN-
BY THOSE LAWS(?!) -
OVER 150,000
‘HERETICS’(?) (who REJECTED
HER ANTICHRIST CHURCH DOCTRINES) were, ARRESTED, TRIED(?!) ROBBED/IMPRISONED, TORTURED/KILLED,
DURING OVER 670 YEARS
! THIS
HAS BEEN/IS AS
the ANTICHRIST HOLY(?!) SEE works lovingly(?!) WITH the ANTICHRIST
‘KINGS OF THE EARTH’ IN the U.N. to MAKE ANTICHRIST LAWS(?!)
to REIGN OVER ALL THE
EARTH-INCLUDING AMERICA! The CRUSADES- STARTED by POPE URBAN II – where 1-2 MILLION were KILLED, including THOUSANDS in the EASTERN ORTHODOX, CHRISTIAN
CITY of CONSTANTINOPLE – that HAD REJECTED the REIGN OF ROMAN
CATHOLIC POPES for HUNDREDS of YEARS- where CRUSADERS RAPED
NUNS! Over 1000 Catholic PRIESTS RAPING/SODOMIZING THOUSANDS
of American CHILDREN, for YEARS! And THOUSANDS
MORE CATHOLIC PRIESTS RAPING/SODOMIZING untold THOUSANDS
of CHILDREN in OTHER
countries WORLD WIDE, for YEARS- as shown/PROVEN in the video ‘SPOTLIGHT’! AND
THIS, ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF
THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH’ (REV 17:5*) and HER ‘HARLOT’
daughter CHRISTIAN(?!) churches HAVE/DO FEED their FLOCKS the ‘ABOMINATION
OF DESOLATION’!(MATT
24:15*) THAT IS a CURSED
‘Lord’s supper’ eaten TOGETHER in Church. So ALL such peoples’ SOULS (BILLIONS) HAVE BEEN/ARE SOLD (for $$MONEY/RICHES PAID TO ANTICHRIST churches) into HELLFIRE- for OVER 1000 YEARS IN the ‘GREAT
TRIBULATION’!(MATT 24:21*)
THUS FULFILLING YESHUA CHRIST’S
WORDS* IN MATTHEW 24*!
And OBVIOUSLY IF Americans tried to RESIST such a WORLD WIDE REIGN of
the ANTICHRIST UNITED NATIONS,
then ALL such Americans would be CRIMINALS- BY U.N.
ANTICHRIST LAWS(?!)! And would BE SUBJECT TO ARREST, TRIAL(?!) and PROSECUTION! And OBVIOUSLY
the CATHOLIC ‘MOTHER’ CHURCH-
that HAD lovingly(?!) helped MAKE THOSE LAWS(?!)-
WOULD SUPPORT the LAWFUL(?!) REIGN of the ANTICHRIST
‘KINGS OF THE EARTH’, IN the U.N.! AND OBVIOUSLY, WHEN this became a WAR,
MANY of the MILLIONS of
ANTICHRISTS LAWFULLY(?!) IN America, WOULD BE
a ‘FIFTH COLUMN’, WITH TERRORIST(?!) ATTACKS on a SCALE
that would make 911 look TRIVIAL! And OBVIOUSLY
SOME of this is being planned- like GUN CONTROL. And OBVIOUSLY,
JUST LIKE BEFORE 911,
America’s LAWmakers, and LAWenforcers,
ARE to BLINDED by SATAN, to ‘SEE’ THIS COMING!
What about YOU- YOUR family and
friends? For real help from
GOD/CHRIST, to THEIR GLORY, see www.forjesuschrist.com.
Re-done, from the 5/19/19 version, only making the change to the name YESHUA. Done ONLY by FAITH
IN GOD’S WORDS*/YESHUA CHRIST, to THEIR GLORY,
on 5/25/21. YESHUA is used here as the NAME of CHRIST, per the ‘TRUE NAME of
the
MESSIAH’ document. The name JESUS has been left as written in all Biblical texts.