Pontiff tells UN: no state can limit rights
By Cindy Wooden
25 April 2008

Benedict XVI addresses the UN General Assembly in New York

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 has said.

In his April 18 speech to the UN 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.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the pope and met privately with him before the Pope addressed the General Assembly.

In his public welcoming remarks, the UN leader 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."

The Pope acknowledged that common ground not only in his speech, but also in a brief homage to UN staff members and peacekeepers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Before leaving UN headquarters he stopped before the war-scarred UN flag that had flown outside the UN headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003.

Placed above the words "Fallen in the cause of peace," the flag has become a memorial, particularly to Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN envoy to Iraq who was killed in Baghdad in August 2003.

Before addressing the General Assembly the Pope signed a visitors' book, writing in Latin: "Erit opus iustitiae pax (Is 32:17) 18.IV.2008 Benedictus XVI." The Latin quote from the Book of Isaiah is translated in the New American Bible as "Justice will bring about peace."

In his address to the General Assembly the German-born Pope said he came to the United Nations as a sign of his esteem for the organisation, 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 recognised 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 civilisations."