Archbishop Celestino Migliore at the United Nations General Assembly

(September 30, 2008) The year has been dominated by a number of challenges and crises: natural and man-made calamities, staggering economies, financial turmoil, rising food and fuel prices, the impact of climate change, local wars and tensions. We have been called to identify the common causes and denominators underlying these diverse crises and to craft adequate long-term solutions, said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See. He was speaking at the 63^rd General Session of the United Nations at New York on the 29^th September. One of the clear facts recognized by all is that every crisis presents a mixture of natural factors and elements of human responsibility, he said. When speaking of the responsibility to protect, the Archbishop referred to duty of the international community to intervene in situations where individual governments are not able or willing to assure the protection of their own citizens. He referred to the address of Pope Benedict at the UN in April 2008, that the responsibility to protect has served and must continue to serve as the principle shared by all nations to govern their populations and regulate relations between peoples. But the responsibility to protect should not be viewed merely in terms of military intervention but find means for fair and open negotiations, support the moral force of law and search for the common good, said the Prelate. He further said that with the various financial, humanitarian and food crises around the world, the United Nations and its membership have the responsibility to provide direction, coherence, and resolution in order to see that all peoples have the opportunity to live with freedom from fear and want and thus realize their inherent dignity. The Archbishop called on the global community to come together to reverse this contradiction and engage in a political discourse that recognizes the centrality of humans in all aspects of political and technological development.