Pope Francis' Speech at the
United Nations General Assembly
(Pope Francis addressed the United Nations
General Assembly on Friday September 25th 2015 (morning), the
first time a Pope has opened such an
event. The Pope's lengthy speech covered reform, human rights, missions of
peace and equity.)
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 MartÃn
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.
For eight years, Fr. Balleis has captured the beauty, the determination and the exhaustion in the faces of the migrants and refugees he has met around the world as international director of JRS.
