Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Focuses On Human Rights

The 15th Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences is meeting in the Vatican through Tuesday. The meetings this year are focused on Catholic social doctrine and human rights. Pope Benedict XVI addressed the group (full text of remarks). He said in part:

In the middle of the last century, after the vast suffering caused by two terrible world wars and the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by totalitarian ideologies, the international community acquired a new system of international law based on human rights....

The Church's action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have. Nevertheless..., human reason must undergo constant purification by faith, insofar as it is always in danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by disordered passions and sin; and, on the other hand, insofar as human rights need to be re-appropriated by every generation and by each individual....

This perspective draws attention to some of the most critical social problems of recent decades, such as the growing awareness - which has in part arisen with globalisation and the present economic crisis - of a flagrant contrast between the equal attribution of rights and the unequal access to the means of attaining those rights. For Christians ... it is a shameful tragedy that one-fifth of humanity still goes hungry. Assuring an adequate food supply, like the protection of vital resources such as water and energy, requires all international leaders to collaborate in ... promoting solidarity and subsidiarity with the weakest regions and peoples of the planet as the most effective strategy for eliminating social inequalities ... and for increasing global security.

Mary Ann Glendon, president of the the Academy, delivered remarks (full text) upon being received by the Pontiff during the plenary session. After focusing on the Church's "long engagement with human rights," she also commented that: "in today's world, ironically, many threats to the dignity of the person have appeared in the guise of human rights."