(April 19, 2008) Neither government nor religion has a right to change or limit human
rights, because those rights flow from the dignity of each person created in God's
image, Pope Benedict XVI said on Friday. In his April 18 speech to the United Nations
General Assembly, the pope insisted that human rights cannot be limited or rewritten
on the basis of national interests or majority rule. But he also said the role of
religions is not to dictate government policy, but to help their members strive to
find the truth, including the truth about the dignity of all people even if their
religious views are different. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the
pope and met privately with him before the pope addressed the General Assembly. Friday
was Pope Benedict’s 3rd full day of his April 15 – 20 pastoral visit to
the United States. In his public welcoming remarks, the Ban Ki-Moon said, "The United
Nations is a secular institution, composed of 192 states. We have six official languages
but no official religion. We do not have a chapel - though we do have a meditation
room. "But if you ask those of us who work for the United Nations what motivates
us, many of us reply in a language of faith," he said. "We see what we do not only
as a job, but as a mission. Indeed, mission is the word we use most often for our
work around the world -- from peace and security to development to human rights.
"Your Holiness, in so many ways, our mission unites us with yours," he said. In
his address to the General Assembly, the German-born Pope Benedict said he came to
the United Nations as a sign of his esteem for the organization, founded after the
devastation of World War II when several governments ignored the fact that human beings
were created by God and that the basic principles of right and wrong are written in
the heart of each person. "In consequence," he said, "freedom and human dignity were
grossly violated." The pope, always a strong supporter of the United Nations
and its efforts to avoid conflicts and end wars, insisted that when one country has
a problem with another, it must not act unilaterally, but seek the assistance of the
United Nations. "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,"
he said. As expected, Pope Benedict paid tribute to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, adopted 60 years ago. The pope said the document - proclaiming the
equality of all people, the basic right to life and to freedom, liberty of conscience
and the free practice of religion - was the result of "a convergence of different
religious and cultural traditions." The traditions, he said, were determined to ensure
that concern for and protection of the human person was the centre of attention in
the workings of societies, governments and institutions. "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," the pope said. "They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts
and present in different cultures and civilizations," he said. Pope Benedict said
an attempt to deny that human rights have a foundation in the way God created human
beings and that they are common to all people creates a real risk that they will be
limited "in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks."
The pope said it is essential that people and governments recognize they are not the
creators of human rights and they cannot limit them. Religious freedom is an essential
human right, he said, and when exercised as a search for truth, religion can promote
a broader recognition of human rights. "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," the pope
said. Pope Benedict said inter-religious dialogue contributes to global peace and
the defence of human rights when it brings believers together in their search for
truth. The task of religions, he said, "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." While religions have an obligation
to promote recognition of human rights, they also must defend the rights of their
members to bring the values of their faith to bear on the decisions they make as citizens.
"It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves
-- their faith -- in order to be active citizens," he said. "It should never be necessary
to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights." The pope asked the United Nations and
the world's governments to make special efforts to defend religious freedom in societies
where extreme secularism tends to push believers out of the public sphere and where
one religion has been adopted as the national religion and other believers suffer
discrimination or oppression. The pope also told the United Nations that upholding
all human rights for all residents of a country is a measure of that country's progress
in working for the common good. In addition, he said, "the promotion of human rights
remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries
and social groups and for increasing security." When dignity is attacked and when
people live in hardship and despair, he said, they become "easy prey to the call to
violence." After speaking to the General Assembly, the pope met privately with
its president and the president of the Security Council. Then he returned to the General
Assembly hall, where he addressed members of the U.N. staff.