M
Matt25
Guest
(Zenit.org).- Here is the address Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, delivered Friday during 60th General Assembly of the United Nations. zenit.org/english/show_2.php
…It is true that the United Nations is not a super-government. Rather, it is the result of the political will of individual member countries. Yet ordinary men and women, the many millions who constitute the “we the people” of the U.N. Charter, are saying to the leaders of nations: Give us a modern institution, capable of taking resolutions and then enforcing them. This is an insistent appeal issued to us by men and women who are disheartened by promises made and not kept, resolutions adopted and not enforced. Their cry must instill in us the determination necessary to undertake an institutional reform of the United Nations, a reform that is attentive to the real demands of our peoples rather than to the balance of power. …
Focusing our attention now on the great theme of development, we must acknowledge that recent years have witnessed a number of promising gestures on the part of governments. For example, the proposal for new mechanisms to finance development (the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account, the International Finance Facility, the “Nouveaux mécanismes de taxation internationale” recently proposed by the French government and other states, etc.), and especially the recent decisions of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, are greatly appreciated by the Holy See. However, much work remains to be done in order to achieve greater economic and financial solidarity. This must include a solution to the debt problem of the poorest countries and of average-income countries with serious foreign debt problems, together with the re-launching of public development aid (ODA, Official Development Assistance) and a generous opening of markets to assist poor countries.
It is true that such actions by developed countries must be accompanied by a renewed commitment on the part of the governments of developing countries, who have a duty to combat corruption, to guarantee the rule of law and above all to take responsibility for the social aspects of development, such as education, job security and basic health care for all. To a world already exposed to pandemics, while others are at risk of breaking out, to the millions without access to basic healthcare, medicine and drinking water, we cannot offer an ambiguous, reductive or even ideological vision of health. For example, would it not be better to speak clearly of the “health of women and children” instead of using the term “reproductive health?” Could there be a desire to return to the language of a “right to abortion?”
…It is true that the United Nations is not a super-government. Rather, it is the result of the political will of individual member countries. Yet ordinary men and women, the many millions who constitute the “we the people” of the U.N. Charter, are saying to the leaders of nations: Give us a modern institution, capable of taking resolutions and then enforcing them. This is an insistent appeal issued to us by men and women who are disheartened by promises made and not kept, resolutions adopted and not enforced. Their cry must instill in us the determination necessary to undertake an institutional reform of the United Nations, a reform that is attentive to the real demands of our peoples rather than to the balance of power. …
Focusing our attention now on the great theme of development, we must acknowledge that recent years have witnessed a number of promising gestures on the part of governments. For example, the proposal for new mechanisms to finance development (the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account, the International Finance Facility, the “Nouveaux mécanismes de taxation internationale” recently proposed by the French government and other states, etc.), and especially the recent decisions of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, are greatly appreciated by the Holy See. However, much work remains to be done in order to achieve greater economic and financial solidarity. This must include a solution to the debt problem of the poorest countries and of average-income countries with serious foreign debt problems, together with the re-launching of public development aid (ODA, Official Development Assistance) and a generous opening of markets to assist poor countries.
It is true that such actions by developed countries must be accompanied by a renewed commitment on the part of the governments of developing countries, who have a duty to combat corruption, to guarantee the rule of law and above all to take responsibility for the social aspects of development, such as education, job security and basic health care for all. To a world already exposed to pandemics, while others are at risk of breaking out, to the millions without access to basic healthcare, medicine and drinking water, we cannot offer an ambiguous, reductive or even ideological vision of health. For example, would it not be better to speak clearly of the “health of women and children” instead of using the term “reproductive health?” Could there be a desire to return to the language of a “right to abortion?”
