Holy See addressed Human Rights Council

(March 5, 2010) While establishing new regulations and reliable governance to address the root causes of the current financial crisis one must have an integrated approach to the implementation of all economic, social, civil and political human rights. This point was made by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Speaking at the 13th Session of the Human Rights Council on Wednesday, Archbishop Tomasi explained that in Pope Benedict’s view the many negative consequences of the financial crisis, such as hunger, inequality, unemployment, extreme poverty etc… “are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action…” He said that the enjoyment of human rights becomes possible when the state, which is the first actor in the implementation of human rights, translates principles into law and makes change on the ground a reality. Archbishop Tomasi said that the common goal of today’s globalized world is the protection and respect of human dignity that binds together the entire human family on the four basic principles of the centrality of the human person, solidarity, subsidiarity and the common good.