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BOOKLET 39:Layout 1 THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES XV Plenary Session Catholic Social Doctrine and Human Rights 1-5 May 2009 • Casina Pio IV Introduction p.3 Einleitung 8 Introduzione p.14 Programme p. 19 List of Participants p.22 Biographies of Participants p.25 Holy Masses p.27 Memorandum p. 27 14 SCIE IA NT M IA E R D V A M C A S O A I C C I I A F L I I T V N M O P VATICAN CITY 2009 When presented purely in terms of legality, rights risk becoming weak proposi- tions divorced from the ethical and rational dimension which is their foundation and their goal. The Universal Declaration, rather, has reinforced the conviction that respect for human rights is principally rooted in unchanging justice, on which the binding force of international proclamations is also based. This aspect is often overlooked when the attempt is made to deprive rights of their true function in the name of a nar- rowly utilitarian perspective. Since rights and the resulting duties follow naturally from human interaction, it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members of society, and hence valid at all times and for all peoples. This intuition was expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of Hippo, one of the masters of our intellectual heritage. He taught that the saying: Do not do to others what you would not want done to you “can- not in any way vary according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world” (De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must be respected as an expression of justice, and not merely because they are enforceable through the will of the legislators. Pope Benedict XVI, Address at the Meeting with the Members of the General Assem- bly of the United Nations Organization, New York, Friday, 18 April 2008. 2 Catholic Social Doctrine INTRODUCTION and Human Rights R. MINNERATH, O. FUMAGALLI CARULLI, V. POSSENTI ‘Where is your brother?’ God’s question to Cain forms of behaviour into national and international re- (Gen 4:9) is posed to mankind in all epochs as a cen- lations. It has helped millions of people in their search tral question in the achievement of the Order of the for respect for human dignity, in the pathway towards Creation. It is proposed anew every time that the laws better political systems, and in withdrawing the threat of a State or the practice of the international com- of violence and injustice from life in society. It has munity or the behaviour of a people or the attitude of helped to install a ‘culture of human rights’ which by an individual forget that God is the supreme source now is an essential dimension of the ethical, social of the dignity of the human person and his funda- and political debate nearly everywhere in the world. mental rights. However, we are painfully aware that fundamental If one begins from this question and answers it by human rights are violated often in a way that is taking advantage of Catholic social doctrine, the list- equally dramatic to what happened sixty years ago, ing of human rights emerges with a precise neutral beginning with the right to life, and that millions of grammar which places rights near to duties in the the citizens in the world are denied respect, freedom, case of both individuals and communities: the right development and the possibility of expressing their to life and to a family, to the integrity of the human own opinions, of freely practicing their religion, and person, to freedom of conscience, and to freedom of of freely enjoying a standard of living that ensures religion or belief. The slow emergence of the rights of freedom from hunger and thirst. There is also an freedom (as is the case with the various international acute inability to counter the increasing phenomenon charters of the modern age), from individual rights to of the trade in humans, especially children. An un- political rights and social rights, has had to address healthy habitat, climatic disturbance, local and global this question, correlating itself with responsibility and inequalities, and an inability to achieve true solidarity duty as well. towards the weakest regions continue to poison the A long historical itinerary, which was already tak- contemporary world which is not able to pursue the ing place in the age when individual national states authentic overall development of the person, the were affirming their sovereignty, witnessed the birth human family or the planet. The very pathway to- and flourishing of the ancient ius gentium as a regu- wards security and global peace runs the risk of tak- lator of the relations between peoples. This was a re- ing more steps backwards than forwards given the sult of the fundamental contribution of the Dominican absence of a strong system of governance leading to- friar Francisco de Vitoria, a precursor of the idea of the wards supranational authorities that are able to work United Nations. He argued that totus mundus est for global ends. quasi una res publica. Other significant stages were This differential description, made of light and reached in subsequent ages, at times in harmony with darkness, has a multiplicity of causes, amongst which and at times in divergence with Christian principles. of importance is a correct understanding of the na- ture and range of human rights. Here the social doc- trine of the Catholic Church illuminates an original The Situation Now approach. The dialectic relationship between the Church and human rights, which has occurred dur- In the contemporary age the Universal Declaration ing modernity, cannot be seen as being closed for of Human Rights and the references to it that have ever: new problems and new situations constantly been made in the subsequent charters of individual emerge and they require discernment and explo- States or the international community have been fun- ration. damental in the consolidation in the collective con- sciousness of the importance of respect for human rights. ‘Our society has rightly enshrined the greatness The Relationship between the Catholic Church and and dignity of the human person in various declara- Human Rights tions of rights, formulated in the wake of the Universal It is known that the Catholic Church is at the pres- Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted ex- ent time one of the few international authorities that actly sixty years ago. That solemn act, in the words of defends the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of Pope Paul VI, was one of the greatest achievements of 1948. There are two reasons for this. This Declaration the United Nations’ (Benedict XVI, Address to the is in perfect harmony with the Christian vision of the Diplomatic Corps, 7 January 2008). dignity and the inviolability of the human person and This sentence confirms that the Universal Decla- the family based on marriage. The development of ration of Human Rights was a seminal document in human rights of the first, second and third generations international law and marked a milestone in the jour- has largely lost from sight the anchorage of human ney of humanity towards respect for the rights of rights in the natural order and has accentuated in an every human being. Since 1948 the Universal Decla- exaggerated way the subjective, that is to say individu- ration, together with other juridical instruments, has alistic, character of the very understanding of human played a specific role in inserting new precepts and 3 Catholic Social Doctrine and Human Rights Introduction rights. Whereas the Declaration did not exclude a hori- of the right to an abortion, the right of a couple of the zon of transcendence in its upholding of the non-ne- same sex to adopt children, and the right to avoid ju- gotiability of human dignity, this foundation has not ridical precision as regards concepts such as ‘the per- been looked for in the developments subsequent to son’, ‘life’ and ‘the family’, as rights. These negative 1966. The Catholic Church observes with amazement trends, with their injurious consequences, must be the proclaiming of rights that correspond more to the condemned in the name of the rational coherence of claims of organised minorities than requirements that human rights. are rationally based on the natural order. This session wants to emphasise once again the A Universal Anthropological Foundation: the Natural specificity of the approach of the social doctrine of the Law Church which is based upon the notion of the dignity of the person who participates in relationships with In the tradition of the social doctrine of the others and interacts with the goods of the universe. The Church, human rights are rooted in the natural moral social doctrine quite rightly hesitates to engage with a law: ‘[it] states the first and essential precepts which subjective conception of rights. The approach of the govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for Church sometimes gives the impression of not being God and submission to him, who is the source and very different from that of States and international or- judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense ganisations. We should return and pick up the thread that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are that began with the approach exclusively centred on expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called ‘nat- the natural law but which then drifted into an ap- ural’, not in reference to the nature of irrational proach centred on the subjective rights of the person.
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