30-September-2004 -- Catholic News Agency
VATICAN CITY, Vatican, September 30 (CNA) -
Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States,
laid out the Holy See's policy on global themes on the agenda of the 59th United
Nations General Assembly in New York, inlcuding poverty and development, peace,
regional armed conflicts, terrorism, and the right to life and freedom of
religion.
The theme of poverty and development "affects the right to subsistence
of hundreds of millions of human beings, surviving - as best they can - below
the threshold of what is necessary, as well as tens of millions of
undernourished children unjustly deprived of the right to live."
He said that the world "must find a lasting solution to these inhumane
conditions, ... progressing, under the aegis of the U.N. towards a more flexible
and more just international trade system."
Total and general disarmament must take place for the achievement of peace in
the world, said the Archbishop. "The problem of weapons of mass destruction
is clearly to be distinguished from that of conventional weapons," he said,
"but the latter have a terrible and unending contemporary relevance in the
numerous armed conflicts that stain the world with blood, and also in
terrorism."
On the theme of regional armed conflicts around the world, the Archbishop
spoke on the Middle East and said that "The Catholic Church, present in
Palestine for 2,000 years, invites everyone to turn their backs on any action
likely to destroy confidence, and to utter generous words of peace and make bold
gestures of peace."
"And if peace is the fruit of justice," he said, "let it not
be forgotten ... that there can be no justice without forgiveness. Indeed,
without mutual forgiveness. This clearly requires greater moral courage than the
use of arms."
He also affirmed that "the Holy See believes it is now imperative to
support the present [Iraqi] Government in its efforts to bring the country to
normality and to a political system that is substantially democratic and in
harmony with the values of its historic traditions."
He said that African countries of Sudan, Somalia, those in the Great Lakes
region and the Ivory coast are "scarred by bloodshed arising from mutual
conflicts and even more from internal strife. They need active international
solidarity, ... and the African Union needs to intervene authoritatively so as
to bring all legitimate interested parties around a negotiating table."
He said that "today no State can presume to be safe" from terrorism
"an aberrant phenomenon, utterly unworthy of man, which has already assumed
global dimensions."
"Hence," he stated, "without prejudice to the right and duty
of each State to implement just measures to protect its citizens and its
institutions, it seems obvious that terrorism can only be effectively challenged
through a concerted multilateral approach, respecting the 'ius gentium', and not
through the politics of unilateralism."
Archbishop Lajolo concluded by speaking on human rights, most fundamentally
the right to life and freedom of religion. Archbishop Lajolo said that "in
reality, such fundamental human rights stand or fall together. And man stands or
falls with them. For this reason - in the view of the Holy See - every effort
has to be made to defend them in all fields."
"For this to happen, one particular danger must be avoided, which is
found today in various countries and social settings. It is the idea that these
fundamental human rights, as sanctioned by the (1948) Universal Declaration (of
Human Rights), are expressions of a particular culture and are therefore highly
relative," he said.