Pope Benedict XVI speaks to Council of Europe Assembly
Pope Benedict XVI's Address to the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe
Mr President, Dear members of the Bureau of
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I am very grateful to the
Honourable Mr Çavuşoğlu for the kind words he addressed to me on behalf of the Bureau
and I extend to all of you a cordial welcome. I am happy to receive you on the sixtieth
anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights which, as is well known, commits
Member States of the Council of Europe to promote and defend the inviolable dignity
of the human person. I know that the Parliamentary Assembly has on its agenda important
topics that deal above all with persons who live in particularly difficult situations
or are subjected to grave violations of their dignity. I have in mind people afflicted
with handicaps, children who suffer violence, immigrants, refugees, those who pay
the most for the present economic and financial crisis, those who are victims of extremism
or of new forms of slavery such as human trafficking, the illegal drug trade and prostitution.
Your work also is concerned with victims of warfare and with people who live in fragile
democracies. I have also been informed of your efforts to defend religious freedom
and to oppose violence and intolerance against believers in Europe and worldwide. Keeping
in mind the context of today’s society in which different peoples and cultures come
together, it is imperative to develop the universal validity of these rights as well
as their inviolability, inalienability and indivisibility. On different occasions
I have pointed out the risks associated with relativism in the area of values, rights
and duties. If these were to lack an objective rational foundation, common to all
peoples, and were based exclusively on particular cultures, legislative decisions
or court judgements, how could they offer a solid and long-lasting ground for supranational
institutions such as the Council of Europe, and for your own task within that prestigious
institution? How could a fruitful dialogue among cultures take place without common
values, rights and stable, universal principles understood in the same way by all
Members States of the Council of Europe? These values, rights and duties are rooted
in the natural dignity of each person, something which is accessible to human reasoning.
The Christian faith does not impede, but favours this search, and is an invitation
to seek a supernatural basis for this dignity. I am convinced that these principles,
faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to
natural death, with marriage – rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self
between one man and one woman – and freedom of religion and education, are necessary
conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that
history presents to each one of you. Dear friends, I know that you also wish to
reach out to those who suffer. This gives me joy and I encourage you to fulfil your
sensitive and important mission with moderation, wisdom and courage at the service
of the common good of Europe. I thank you for coming and I assure you of my prayers.
May God bless you!