Mr President,
Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for your kind words. Once again, following a tradition
by which I feel honored, the Secretary General of the United Nations has
invited the Pope to address this distinguished assembly of nations. In my own
name, and that of the entire Catholic community, I wish to express to you, Mr
Ban Ki-moon, my heartfelt gratitude. I greet the Heads of State and Heads of
Government present, as well as the ambassadors, diplomats and political and
technical officials accompanying them, the personnel of the United Nations
engaged in this 70th Session of the General Assembly, the personnel of the
various programs and agencies of the United Nations family, and all those who,
in one way or another, take part in this meeting. Through you, I also greet the
citizens of all the nations represented in this hall. I thank you, each and
all, for your efforts in the service of mankind.
This
is the fifth time that a Pope has visited the United Nations. I follow in the
footsteps of my predecessors Paul VI, in1965, John Paul II, in 1979 and 1995,
and my most recent predecessor, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in 2008. All of
them expressed their great esteem for the Organization, which they considered
the appropriate juridical and political response to this present moment of
history, marked by our technical ability to overcome distances and frontiers
and, apparently, to overcome all natural limits to the exercise of power. An
essential response, inasmuch as technological power, in the hands of
nationalistic or falsely universalist ideologies, is capable of perpetrating
tremendous atrocities. I can only reiterate the appreciation expressed by my
predecessors, in reaffirming the importance which the Catholic Church attaches
to this Institution and the hope which she places in its activities.
The
United Nations is presently celebrating its seventieth anniversary. The history
of this organized community of states is one of important common achievements
over a period of unusually fast-paced changes. Without claiming to be
exhaustive, we can mention the codification and development of international
law, the establishment of international norms regarding human rights, advances
in humanitarian law, the resolution of numerous conflicts, operations of
peace-keeping and reconciliation, and any number of other accomplishments in
every area of international activity and endeavour. All these achievements are
lights which help to dispel the darkness of the disorder caused by unrestrained
ambitions and collective forms of selfishness. Certainly, many grave problems
remain to be resolved, yet it is clear that, without all those interventions on
the international level, mankind would not have been able to survive the
unchecked use of its own possibilities. Every one of these political, juridical
and technical advances is a path towards attaining the ideal of human
fraternity and a means for its greater realization.
For
this reason I pay homage to all those men and women whose loyalty and
self-sacrifice have benefitted humanity as a whole in these past seventy years.
In particular, I would recall today those who gave their lives for peace and
reconciliation among peoples, from Dag Hammarskjöld to the many United Nations
officials at every level who have been killed in the course of humanitarian
missions, and missions of peace and reconciliation.
Beyond
these achievements, the experience of the past seventy years has made it clear
that reform and adaptation to the times is always necessary in the pursuit of
the ultimate goal of granting all countries, without exception, a share in, and
a genuine and equitable influence on, decision-making processes. The need for
greater equity is especially true in the case of those bodies with effective
executive capability, such as the Security Council, the Financial Agencies and
the groups or mechanisms specifically created to deal with economic crises.
This will help limit every kind of abuse or usury, especially where developing
countries are concerned. The International Financial Agencies are should care
for the sustainable development of countries and should ensure that they are
not subjected to oppressive lending systems which, far from promoting progress,
subject people to mechanisms which generate greater poverty, exclusion and
dependence.
The
work of the United Nations, according to the principles set forth in the Preamble
and the first Articles of its founding Charter, can be seen as the development
and promotion of the rule of law, based on the realization that justice is an
essential condition for achieving the ideal of universal fraternity. In this
context, it is helpful to recall that the limitation of power is an idea
implicit in the concept of law itself. To give to each his own, to cite the
classic definition of justice, means that no human individual or group can
consider itself absolute, permitted to bypass the dignity and the rights of
other individuals or their social groupings. The effective distribution of
power (political, economic, defense-related, technological, etc.) among a
plurality of subjects, and the creation of a juridical system for regulating claims
and interests, are one concrete way of limiting power. Yet today’s world
presents us with many false rights and – at the same time – broad sectors which
are vulnerable, victims of power badly exercised: for example, the natural
environment and the vast ranks of the excluded. These sectors are closely
interconnected and made increasingly fragile by dominant political and economic
relationships. That is why their rights must be forcefully affirmed, by working
to protect the environment and by putting an end to exclusion.
First,
it must be stated that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two
reasons. First, because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in
communion with it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which
human activity must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts,
which “are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and
biology” (Laudato Si’, 81), is at the same time a part of these spheres. He
possesses a body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can
only survive and develop if the ecological environment is favourable. Any harm
done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity. Second, because
every creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its
existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures.
We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the
universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man respectfully
to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory of the
Creator; he is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In all
religions, the environment is a fundamental good (cf. ibid.).
The
misuse and destruction of the environment are also accompanied by a relentless
process of exclusion. In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and
material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and
to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged, either because they are
differently abled (handicapped), or because they lack adequate information and
technical expertise, or are incapable of decisive political action. Economic
and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offense
against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most
from such offenses, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society,
forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the
environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing “culture
of waste”.
The
dramatic reality this whole situation of exclusion and inequality, with its
evident effects, has led me, in union with the entire Christian people and many
others, to take stock of my grave responsibility in this regard and to speak
out, together with all those who are seeking urgently-needed and effective
solutions. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the
World Summit, which opens today, is an important sign of hope. I am similarly
confident that the Paris Conference on Climatic Change will secure fundamental
and effective agreements.
Solemn
commitments, however, are not enough, even though they are a necessary step
toward solutions. The classic definition of justice which I mentioned earlier
contains as one of its essential elements a constant and perpetual will:
Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius sum cuique tribuendi. Our world
demands of all government leaders a will which is effective, practical and
constant, concrete steps and immediate measures for preserving and improving
the natural environment and thus putting an end as quickly as possible to the
phenomenon of social and economic exclusion, with its baneful consequences:
human trafficking, the marketing of human organs and tissues, the sexual
exploitation of boys and girls, slave labour, including prostitution, the drug
and weapons trade, terrorism and international organized crime. Such is the
magnitude of these situations and their toll in innocent lives, that we must
avoid every temptation to fall into a declarationist nominalism which would
assuage our consciences. We need to ensure that our institutions are truly
effective in the struggle against all these scourges.
The
number and complexity of the problems require that we possess technical
instruments of verification. But this involves two risks. We can rest content
with the bureaucratic exercise of drawing up long lists of good proposals –
goals, objectives and statistical indicators – or we can think that a single
theoretical and aprioristic solution will provide an answer to all the
challenges. It must never be forgotten that political and economic activity is
only effective when it is understood as a prudential activity, guided by a
perennial concept of justice and constantly conscious of the fact that, above
and beyond our plans and programmes, we are dealing with real men and women who
live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty,
deprived of all rights.
To
enable these real men and women to escape from extreme poverty, we must allow
them to be dignified agents of their own destiny. Integral human development
and the full exercise of human dignity cannot be imposed. They must be built up
and allowed to unfold for each individual, for every family, in communion with
others, and in a right relationship with all those areas in which human social
life develops – friends, communities, towns and cities, schools, businesses and
unions, provinces, nations, etc. This presupposes and requires the right to
education – also for girls (excluded in certain places) – which is ensured
first and foremost by respecting and reinforcing the primary right of the
family to educate its children, as well as the right of churches and social
groups to support and assist families in the education of their children.
Education conceived in this way is the basis for the implementation of the 2030
Agenda and for reclaiming the environment.
At
the same time, government leaders must do everything possible to ensure that
all can have the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity
and to create and support a family, which is the primary cell of any social
development. In practical terms, this absolute minimum has three names:
lodging, labour, and land; and one spiritual name: spiritual freedom, which
includes religious freedom, the right to education and other civil rights.
For
all this, the simplest and best measure and indicator of the implementation of
the new Agenda for development will be effective, practical and immediate
access, on the part of all, to essential material and spiritual goods: housing,
dignified and properly remunerated employment, adequate food and drinking
water; religious freedom and, more generally, spiritual freedom and education.
These pillars of integral human development have a common foundation, which is
the right to life and, more generally, what we could call the right to
existence of human nature itself.
The
ecological crisis, and the large-scale destruction of biodiversity, can
threaten the very existence of the human species. The baneful consequences of
an irresponsible mismanagement of the global economy, guided only by ambition
for wealth and power, must serve as a summons to a forthright reflection on
man: “man is not only a freedom which he creates for himself. Man does not
create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature” (BENEDICT XVI, Address
to the Bundestag, 22 September 2011, cited in Laudato Si’, 6). Creation is compromised
“where we ourselves have the final word… The misuse of creation begins when we
no longer recognize any instance above ourselves, when we see nothing else but
ourselves” (ID. Address to the Clergy of the Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone, 6
August 2008, cited ibid.). Consequently, the defence of the environment and the
fight against exclusion demand that we recognize a moral law written into human
nature itself, one which includes the natural difference between man and woman
(cf. Laudato Si’, 155), and absolute respect for life in all its stages and
dimensions (cf. ibid., 123, 136)
Without
the recognition of certain incontestable natural ethical limits and without the
immediate implementation of those pillars of integral human development, the
ideal of “saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war” (Charter of
the United Nations, Preamble), and “promoting social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom” (ibid.), risks becoming an unattainable
illusion, or, even worse, idle chatter which serves as a cover for all kinds of
abuse and corruption, or for carrying out an ideological colonization by the
imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s
identity and, in the end, irresponsible.
War
is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we
want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid
war between nations and between peoples.
To
this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless
recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter
of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm.
The experience of these seventy years since the founding of the United Nations
in general, and in particular the experience of these first fifteen years of
the third millennium, reveal both the effectiveness of the full application of
international norms and the ineffectiveness of their lack of enforcement. When
the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency
and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point
of justice and not as a means of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results
will be obtained. When, on the other hand, the norm is considered simply as an
instrument to be used whenever it proves favourable, and to be avoided when it
is not, a true Pandora’s box is opened, releasing uncontrollable forces which
gravely harm defenseless populations, the cultural milieu and even the biological
environment.
The
Preamble and the first Article of the Charter of the United Nations set forth
the foundations of the international juridical framework: peace, the pacific
solution of disputes and the development of friendly relations between the
nations. Strongly opposed to such statements, and in practice denying them, is
the constant tendency to the proliferation of arms, especially weapons of mass
distraction, such as nuclear weapons. An ethics and a law based on the threat
of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are
self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United
Nations, which would end up as “nations united by fear and distrust”. There is
urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of
the non-proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete
prohibition of these weapons.
The
recent agreement reached on the nuclear question in a sensitive region of Asia
and the Middle East is proof of the potential of political good will and of
law, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy. I express my hope that
this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired
fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved.
In
this sense, hard evidence is not lacking of the negative effects of military
and political interventions which are not coordinated between members of the
international community. For this reason, while regretting to have to do so, I
must renew my repeated appeals regarding to the painful situation of the entire
Middle East, North Africa and other African countries, where Christians,
together with other cultural or ethnic groups, and even members of the majority
religion who have no desire to be caught up in hatred and folly, have been
forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural
and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the
alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to peace
by their own lives, or by enslavement.
These
realities should serve as a grave summons to an examination of conscience on
the part of those charged with the conduct of international affairs. Not only
in cases of religious or cultural persecution, but in every situation of
conflict, as in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan and the Great Lakes
region, real human beings take precedence over partisan interests, however
legitimate the latter may be. In wars and conflicts there are individual persons,
our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who
weep, suffer and die. Human beings who are easily discarded when our only
response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements.
As
I wrote in my letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 9 August
2014, “the most basic understanding of human dignity compels the international
community, particularly through the norms and mechanisms of international law,
to do all that it can to stop and to prevent further systematic violence
against ethnic and religious minorities” and to protect innocent peoples.
Along
the same lines I would mention another kind of conflict which is not always so
open, yet is silently killing millions of people. Another kind of war experienced
by many of our societies as a result of the narcotics trade. A war which is
taken for granted and poorly fought. Drug trafficking is by its very nature
accompanied by trafficking in persons, money laundering, the arms trade, child
exploitation and other forms of corruption. A corruption which has penetrated
to different levels of social, political, military, artistic and religious
life, and, in many cases, has given rise to a parallel structure which
threatens the credibility of our institutions.
I
began this speech recalling the visits of my predecessors. I would hope that my
words will be taken above all as a continuation of the final words of the
address of Pope Paul VI; although spoken almost exactly fifty years ago, they
remain ever timely. “The hour has come when a pause, a moment of recollection,
reflection, even of prayer, is absolutely needed so that we may think back over
our common origin, our history, our common destiny. The appeal to the moral
conscience of man has never been as necessary as it is today… For the danger
comes neither from progress nor from science; if these are used well, they can
help to solve a great number of the serious problems besetting mankind (Address
to the United Nations Organization, 4 October 1965). Among other things, human
genius, well applied, will surely help to meet the grave challenges of
ecological deterioration and of exclusion. As Paul VI said: “The real danger
comes from man, who has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments that are
as well fitted to bring about ruin as they are to achieve lofty conquests”
(ibid.).
The
common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a
right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of
every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly,
children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those
considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic.
This common home of all men and women must also be built on the understanding
of a certain sacredness of created nature.
Such
understanding and respect call for a higher degree of wisdom, one which accepts
transcendence, rejects the creation of an all-powerful élite, and recognizes
that the full meaning of individual and collective life is found in selfless
service to others and in the sage and respectful use of creation for the common
good. To repeat the words of Paul VI, “the edifice of modern civilization has
to be built on spiritual principles, for they are the only ones capable not
only of supporting it, but of shedding light on it” (ibid.).
El
Gaucho Martín Fierro, a classic of literature in my native land, says:
“Brothers should stand by each other, because this is the first law; keep a
true bond between you always, at every time – because if you fight among
yourselves, you’ll be devoured by those outside”.
The
contemporary world, so apparently connected, is experiencing a growing and
steady social fragmentation, which places at risk “the foundations of social
life” and consequently leads to “battles over conflicting interests” (Laudato
Si’, 229).
The
present time invites us to give priority to actions which generate new
processes in society, so as to bear fruit in significant and positive
historical events (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 223). We cannot permit ourselves to
postpone “certain agendas” for the future. The future demands of us critical
and global decisions in the face of world-wide conflicts which increase the
number of the excluded and those in need.
The
praiseworthy international juridical framework of the United Nations
Organization and of all its activities, like any other human endeavour, can be
improved, yet it remains necessary; at the same time it can be the pledge of a
secure and happy future for future generations. And so it will, if the
representatives of the States can set aside partisan and ideological interests,
and sincerely strive to serve the common good. I pray to Almighty God that this
will be the case, and I assure you of my support and my prayers, and the
support and prayers of all the faithful of the Catholic Church, that this
Institution, all its member States, and each of its officials, will always
render an effective service to mankind, a service respectful of diversity and capable
of bringing out, for sake of the common good, the best in each people and in
every individual.
Upon
all of you, and the peoples you represent, I invoke the blessing of the Most
High, and all peace and prosperity. Thank you.
