NewWorld / benedict xvi in the usa

The Holy Father Speaks at the United Nations
There Are No Human Rights Without Christ
When Pope Benedict XVI addressed the United Nations General Assembly on April 18th, he was continuing a tradition that began in 1965. Mario Ramos-Reyes, Professor
of Philosophy at Kansas City Community College, writes about Pope Benedict’s contribution
to this tradition

by Mario Ramos-Reyes, PhD

What is it that attracts thousands of immigrants to the United States every year? The reason, the obvious response, is economic: a better future for their children. Certainly, thousands of individuals come every year to achieve the “American Dream.” But it is also true that many are coming in order to free themselves from authoritarian regimes and oppressive societies. The American dream exemplifies, on the one hand, the possibility of material prosperity but, on the other, it also is a sign of the desire for liberty that is born in the human heart. It is this latter desire that makes possible the former prosperity. His Holiness Benedict XVI, in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, in the city of New York, indicated, implicitly and explicitly, this reality: freedom is what gives persons their dignity, freedom which is not only individual, but communal. Every person is a unity. We are not divided entities. A pluralistic democracy demands the clear identity of its participating subjects, but these subjects don’t live in an isolated or self-sufficient manner. This reality is not only American; it is a human reality. It is the desire for justice, for truth, that is nested within the human heart–a desire, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights made explicit 60 years ago, for a humanity wishful of peace and of truth; a family with a gaze toward the infinite.
It was the traditional style of Pope Ratzinger: emphasis on human life, on liberty and search for meaning, and, above all, on the commitment that every human being has with the truth, a commitment that can only be fulfilled in a personal mode in the exercise of the first liberty, religious liberty. The Pope has been categorical in this regard: one cannot bracket the religious dimension outside the normal sphere of life  in order to be an authentic human being and citizen. In this bracketing lies, ultimately, all the crises of the contemporary world, social and political crises, poverty, violence, ignorance. In this way, the words and gestures of Pope Benedict reaffirmed this pastoral position, typical of him and his immediate predecessor, John Paul II: the defense of human rights as a jealous protection of the intimate desire for freedom within the human heart. Human rights are not simple fictions or empty expressions of wants, nor are they to be reduced to mere legal norms; rather, they put in writing the most profound thing in human nature, part of that “grammar of the heart” that John Paul II spoke about in his own speech before the UN 13 years ago, that “grammar” of the human heart “which is needed if the world is to engage this discussion of its future.”
The Pope has done nothing else besides continue to direct this message to the universal family. It should be noted that the three post-conciliar pontiffs, the Italian Giovanni Montini, the Pole Karol Wojtyla, and the German Joseph Ratzinger have all praised and esteemed the United Nations, as a sort of “supra-national government” which the Church itself supported during its foundational moments and where the pontifical Magisterium finds a receptive and open forum. Pope Paul VI had inaugurated this tradition of messages to the UN in 1965, stating that the net of relations between States and the UN reflects in the temporal order what the Catholic Church proposes “in the spiritual order: a unique and universal message.” He was followed by Pope John Paul II who, in 1995, reaffirmed the role that the UN plays as “a moral center in which all the nations of the world feel at home,” a fundamental organization for international justice. Only within this historical continuity, and within this pastoral and cultural time, can we comprehend Pope Benedict’s message from April 18th.

The foundation: dignity
The essential argument that Pope Benedict asked before the assembly can be synthesized in the following claim: only a humanity with a sense of meaning, conscious of its position in the cosmos and its final destiny, can overcome the categories of the post-ideological Enlightenment moralism, and the resulting nihilism that permeates the West. Let us examine three aspects of this claim. The first refers to the foundation, which is the dignity of the human person; the second, more practical, to the concrete, immediate realities derived from this foundation; and the third and final aspect is the cultural and historical judgment, where the Pope, separating himself from the intellectual frivolity and superficiality so common among the contemporary intelligentsia, shows us a path to follow. In this way, again, the essential approach is not a mere reaction before the world but rather, being a part of this world, we act within it, physically present, and not from the perspective of an outsider.
First, let’s examine the primary aspect, the foundation: the dignity of the human person. This is what is at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dignity constitutes the vital center within institutions, political systems, and public policies. The human person possesses an infinite value that is non-negotiable. Without a clear conscience of said dignity, there can’t be human rights. For this reason, the Pope noted, it is not good that the plurality of points of view in the world should obscure the idea that a person has dignity. There are no human rights with a dignity that is the result of majority vote. If this notion of human dignity is allowed to become obscure, or if its meaning is left to the mercy of public opinion or fad, then everything will be permitted and the dictatorship of relativism will conquer all consciences, political systems, cultures, and societies.

The fruits of justice
How to recuperate, to re-propose the reasonableness of human rights in a world where almost everything seems degraded? True to his Augustinian sensibility, Pope Benedict speaks of rights as “an expression of justice” and not simply “the will of legislators.” This takes us to the second aspect of his message, which deals with the problems which pose a challenge to this foundation, because they aggravate human dignity. Pope Benedict names a few of them: science without ethics and human rights measured by their utility. No one can deny the great benefits that humanity has attained through the advance of science, but they should not be obtained at the price of an open “violation of the order of creation.” The critique of science without ethics, however, is not a rejection of science as such but rather an exhortation for it to continue with its own methodology, while urging that this scientific method “truly respect ethical imperatives.” The notion of the common good, which these rights pursue, also demands this evaluation. The common good should not be the fruit of procedure, but of justice. Democracy itself cannot be reduced to procedure. From this, Pope Benedict insists on this point: human rights should not be the fruit of pacts or utilitarian arrangements or “the exclusive result of legislative enactments or normative decisions taken by the various agencies of those in power.”
Finally, the third aspect, the cultural and historical judgment: what is the path to follow in order to make the aims of the Universal Declaration of Rights a reality? Pope Benedict takes note of history in order to indicate the best alternative. It is the recognition of “the unity of the human family, and attention to the innate dignity of every man and woman” which confers legitimacy to human rights, a notion that is not new but that “was already implicitly present in the origins of the United Nations.” But the pontiff does not take a wistful trip back to that hopeful year of 1948, nor does he concede to a certain type of modern thought–from Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau–which pretends to be the sole conceiver of human rights. The Pope sees further. Faithful to the facts of history, he mentions the thought of a Catholic, the wise Dominican friar Francisco de Vitoria, as a generator of the notion of the rights of man, which gives birth to the “responsibility to protect” human beings, an idea at the core of the United Nations. Human rights, according to Pope Benedict, have their foundation and birth within the Catholic tradition in this way: they are the reaffirmation of the assertion that the person is an “image of the Creator, the desire for the absolute and the essence of freedom.”

A guaranteed joy
The cultural and historical judgment which has marked the first three years of Pope Benedict’s pontificate are thus reaffirmed, reassured: the global problems of humanity cannot be reduced to the economic or political order. This was the lie of modern ideologies that attempted and still attempt to interpret reality according to the dictates of power. The authentic question, then, is the moral question which is synthesized in the question of the religious sense–that is, “What will, ultimately, make me happy?”  For this question to be asked and lived, the joy of human rights should be guaranteed, rights which will protect this journey and search. To ensure this guarantee is the task of every generation, as the Pope writes in Spe Salvi. This is the path of the heart which, as the Pope told the UN, “For Christians...is motivated by the hope drawn from the saving work of Jesus Christ.”
We must  return, finally, to the human person in his own intimacy as the source of certainty and renewal, with his heart as the place where liberty and destiny are played out in human history, this being a return to our own conscience as human beings made in the image of God. To conclude, this is the message from Benedict to the world: Without Christ, there is no man. Without the mystery of the Incarnation, there are no human rights. Only from an experience of faith comes authentic change and true justice.