Address Of His Holiness Pope John Paul II To
The Diplomatic Corps Accredited To The Holy See For The Traditional Exchange Of
New Year Greetings
Monday, 10 January 2005
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Pro-Life Excerpt (full article to follow)
5. The first is the challenge of life. Life is the first gift which God
has given us, it is the first resource which man can enjoy. The Church is called
to proclaim "the Gospel of Life". And the State has as its primary task
precisely the safeguarding and promotion of human life.
The challenge to life has grown in scale and urgency in recent years. It has
involved particularly the beginning of human life, when human beings are at
their weakest and most in need of protection. Conflicting views have been put
forward regarding abortion, assisted procreation, the use of human embryonic
stem cells for scientific research, and cloning. The Church's position,
supported by reason and science, is clear: the human embryo is a subject
identical to the human being which will be born at the term of its development.
Consequently whatever violates the integrity and the dignity of the embryo is
ethically inadmissible. Similarly, any form of scientific research which treats
the embryo merely as a laboratory specimen is unworthy of man. Scientific
research in the field of genetics needs to be encouraged and promoted, but, like
every other human activity, it can never be exempt from moral imperatives;
research using adult stem cells, moreover, offers the promise of considerable
success.
The challenge to life has also emerged with regard to the very sanctuary of
life: the family. Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural
pressures which tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the
family is also threatened by legislation which at times directly challenge its
natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a
man and a woman founded on marriage. The family, as a fruitful source of life
and a fundamental and irreplaceable condition for the happiness of the
individual spouses, for the raising of children and for the well-being of
society, and indeed for the material prosperity of the nation, must never be
undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man. There needs to
prevail a just, pure and elevated understanding of human love, which finds in
the family its primordial and exemplary expression. Vince in bono malum.
Full Article
1. The quiet joy which marks this season when the Church re-lives the mystery
of the birth of Emmanuel and the mystery of his humble family in Nazareth, is
very much a part of this, my yearly meeting with you, the distinguished
Ambassadors and members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. In
gathering here today, you in a certain way make visible the great family of the
Nations.
This joy-filled and long-awaited meeting has opened with the message of good
wishes, respect and appreciation for my universal concern on the part of your
Dean, Professor Giovanni Galassi, Ambassador of San Marino. I am grateful for
his kind words and I reciprocate with good wishes of peace and joy for all of
you and your beloved families, and of peace and prosperity for the countries you
represent.
I offer a particularly cordial word of welcome and good wishes to the
thirty-seven Ambassadors who began their mission at the See of Peter in the past
year, and to the members of their families.
2. These sentiments of joy are overshadowed, unfortunately, by the enormous
catastrophe which on 26 December struck different countries of Southeast Asia
and as far as the coasts of East Africa. It made for a painful ending of the
year just past: a year troubled also by other natural calamities, such as the
devastating cyclones in the Indian Ocean and the Antilles, and the plague of
locusts which desolated vast regions of Northwest Africa. Other tragedies also
cast a shadow on 2004, like the acts of barbarous terrorism which caused
bloodshed in Iraq and other countries of the world, the savage attack in Madrid,
the terrorist massacre in Beslan, the inhuman acts of violence inflicted on the
people of Darfur, the atrocities perpetrated in the Great Lakes region of
Africa.
These events have caused great anguish and distress, and we would feel a
tragic concern for the future of humanity, were it not for the fact that from
the cradle of Bethlehem there comes to us a message, both divine and human, of
life and more certain hope: in Jesus Christ, who comes into the world as the
brother of every man and woman and takes his place at our side, it is God
himself who asks us not to yield to discouragement, but to overcome every
difficulty, however great it may be, by strengthening the common bonds of our
humanity and by making them prevail over all other considerations.
3. Your presence here, as representatives of almost all the peoples of the
earth, immediately sets before our eyes the great tableau of humanity with its
grave and troubling problems and its great and undampened hopes. The Catholic
Church, because of her universal nature, is always directly engaged in the great
causes for which the men and women of our age struggle and hope. She considers
herself a stranger to no people, since wherever there are Christians, the whole
body of the Church is called into play; indeed, wherever there is any one
individual, we sense a bond of brotherhood. In her presence and her concern for
the future of men and women everywhere, the Holy See knows that it can count on
Your Excellencies to offer an important service, since it is precisely the
mission of diplomats to transcend borders and to bring peoples and governments
together in the desire to cooperate harmoniously, in scrupulous respect for each
other's competencies, but at the same time in the quest for a higher common
good.
4. In my Message for this year's World Day of Peace, I called the attention
of the Catholic faithful and of all men and women of good will to the
exhortation of the Apostle Paul: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil
with good": vince in bono malum (Rom 12:21). There is a profound truth
underlying these words: in the moral and social sphere, evil takes on the
countenance of selfishness and hatred, which is negativity; it can only be
overcome by love, which has the positivity of generous and disinterested giving,
even to the point of self-sacrifice. This is the heart of the mystery of
Christ's birth: to save humanity from the selfishness of sin and its corollary
of death, God himself lovingly enters, in Christ, into the fullness of life,
into human history, thus raising humanity to the horizon of an even greater
life.
This is the message -"overcome evil with good" - which I would like to
address today to your Excellencies, and through you to the beloved peoples whom
you represent and to your Governments. This message also has a specific
application to international relations, and it can be a guide to all in meeting
the great challenges facing humanity today. Here I would like to point out some
of the more significant ones:
5. The first is the challenge of life. Life is the first gift which God
has given us, it is the first resource which man can enjoy. The Church is called
to proclaim "the Gospel of Life". And the State has as its primary task
precisely the safeguarding and promotion of human life.
The challenge to life has grown in scale and urgency in recent years. It has
involved particularly the beginning of human life, when human beings are at
their weakest and most in need of protection. Conflicting views have been put
forward regarding abortion, assisted procreation, the use of human embryonic
stem cells for scientific research, and cloning. The Church's position,
supported by reason and science, is clear: the human embryo is a subject
identical to the human being which will be born at the term of its development.
Consequently whatever violates the integrity and the dignity of the embryo is
ethically inadmissible. Similarly, any form of scientific research which treats
the embryo merely as a laboratory specimen is unworthy of man. Scientific
research in the field of genetics needs to be encouraged and promoted, but, like
every other human activity, it can never be exempt from moral imperatives;
research using adult stem cells, moreover, offers the promise of considerable
success.
The challenge to life has also emerged with regard to the very sanctuary of
life: the family. Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural
pressures which tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the
family is also threatened by legislation which at times directly challenge its
natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a
man and a woman founded on marriage. The family, as a fruitful source of life
and a fundamental and irreplaceable condition for the happiness of the
individual spouses, for the raising of children and for the well-being of
society, and indeed for the material prosperity of the nation, must never be
undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man. There needs to
prevail a just, pure and elevated understanding of human love, which finds in
the family its primordial and exemplary expression. Vince in bono malum.
6. The second challenge is that of food. This world, made wondrously fruitful
by its Creator, possesses a sufficient quantity and variety of food for all its
inhabitants, now and in the future. Yet the statistics on world hunger are
dramatic: hundreds of millions of human beings are suffering from grave
malnutrition, and each year millions of children die of hunger or its effects.
In fact, the alarm has been raised for some time now, and the leading
international organizations have set important targets, at least for reducing
the emergency. Concrete proposals have also been put forward, such as those
discussed at the Meeting in New York on hunger and poverty held on 20 September
2004. I had asked Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State, to represent me at
that meeting, as a way of demonstrating the Church's great interest in this
dramatic problem. Many non-governmental associations have also been generously
committed to providing assistance. Yet all this is not enough. An adequate
response to this need, which is growing in scale and urgency, calls for a vast
moral mobilization of public opinion; the same applies all the more to political
leaders, especially in those countries enjoying a sufficient or even prosperous
standard of living.
In this regard, I would like to recall an important principle of the Church's
social teaching, to which I once again made reference in my Message for this
year's World Day of Peace and included in the recently-published Compendium of
the Social Doctrine of the Church: the principle of the universal destination of
the earth's goods. While this principle cannot be used to justify collectivist
forms of economic policy, it should serve to advance a radical commitment to
justice and a more attentive and determined display of solidarity. This is the
good which can overcome the evil of hunger and unjust poverty. Vince in bono
malum.
7. There is also the challenge of peace. As a supreme good and the condition
for attaining many other essential goods, peace is the dream of every
generation. Yet how many wars and armed conflicts continue to take place -
between States, ethnic groups, peoples and groups living in the same territory.
From one end of the world to the other, they are claiming countless innocent
victims and spawning so many other evils! Our thoughts naturally turn to
different countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where
recourse to arms and violence has not only led to incalculable material damage,
but also fomented hatred and increased the causes of tension, thereby adding to
the difficulty of finding and implementing solutions capable of reconciling the
legitimate interests of all the parties involved. In addition to these tragic
evils there is the brutal, inhuman phenomenon of terrorism, a scourge which has
taken on a global dimension unknown to previous generations.
How can the great challenge of building peace overcome such evils? As
diplomats, you are men and women of peace by profession but also by personal
vocation. You know the nature and extent of the means which the international
community has at its disposal for keeping or restoring peace. Like my venerable
predecessors, I have spoken out countless times, in public statements -
especially in my annual Message for the World Day of Peace - and through the
Holy See's diplomatic activity, and I shall continue to do so, pointing out the
paths to peace and urging that they be followed with courage and patience. The
arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed
weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good.
Many indeed are the men and women who are working towards this goal with
courage and perseverance, and there are some encouraging signs that the great
challenge of building peace can be met. In Africa, for instance, despite serious
relapses into disagreements which appeared to have been resolved, there is a
growing common will to resolve and prevent conflicts through a fuller
cooperation between the great international organizations and continental
groupings, like the African Union: examples of this were had in the meeting of
the United Nations Security Council in Nairobi last November to discuss the
humanitarian emergency in Darfur and the situation in Somalia, and in the
international Conference on the Great Lakes region. In the Middle East, the land
so dear and sacred to believers in the God of Abraham, armed confrontation
appears to be decreasing, with the hope of a political breakthrough in the
direction of dialogue and negotiation. Certainly an outstanding example of the
possibility of peace can be seen in Europe: nations which were once fierce
enemies locked in deadly wars are now members of the European Union, which
during the past year aimed at further consolidation through the constitutional
Treaty of Rome, while at the same time showing an openness to admitting other
States willing to accept the requirements of membership.
Bringing about an authentic and lasting peace in this violence-filled world
calls for a power of good that does not shrink before difficulties. It is a
power that human beings on their own cannot obtain or preserve: it is a gift
from God. Christ came to bring this gift to mankind, as the angels sang above
the manger in Bethlehem: "peace among men with whom he is pleased" (Lk 2:14).
God loves mankind, and he wants peace for all men and women. We are asked to be
active instruments of that peace, and to overcome evil with good. Vince in bono
malum.
8. There is another challenge that I wish to mention: the challenge of
freedom. All of you know how important this is to me, especially because of the
history of my native people, yet it is also important to each of you. In your
service as diplomats you are rightly concerned to protect the freedom of the
peoples you represent, and you are diligent in defending that freedom. Yet
freedom is first and foremost a right of each individual. As the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights fittingly states in Article 1 -"all human beings are
born free and equal in dignity and rights". Article 3 goes on to state that
"everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". Certainly the
freedom of States is also sacred; they need to be free, above all so that they
can carry out adequately their fundamental duty of safeguarding both the life
and the freedom of their citizens in all their legitimate manifestations.
Freedom is a great good, because only by freedom can human beings find
fulfilment in a manner befitting their nature. Freedom is like light: it enables
one to choose responsibly his proper goals and the right means of achieving
them. At the very heart of human freedom is the right to religious freedom,
since it deals with man's most fundamental relationship: his relationship with
God. Religious freedom is expressly guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (cf. Article 18). It was also the subject - as all of you are well
aware - of a solemn Declaration of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, one
which began with the significant words Dignitatis Humanae.
In many States, freedom of religion is a right which is not yet sufficiently
or adequately recognized. Yet the yearning for freedom of religion cannot be
suppressed: as long as human beings are alive, it will always be present and
pressing. Consequently I repeat today an appeal which the Church has already
made on numerous occasions: "It is necessary that religious freedom be
everywhere provided with an effective constitutional guarantee, and that respect
be shown for the high duty and right of man freely to lead his religious life in
society" (Dignitatis Humanae, 15).
There need be no fear that legitimate religious freedom would limit other
freedoms or be injurious to the life of civil society. On the contrary: together
with religious freedom, all other freedoms develop and thrive, inasmuch as
freedom is an indivisible good, the prerogative of the human person and his
dignity. Neither should there be a fear that religious freedom, once granted to
the Catholic Church, would intrude upon the realm of political freedom and the
competencies proper to the State: the Church is able carefully to distinguish,
as she must, what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God (cf. Mt 22:21). She
actively cooperates in promoting the common good of society, inasmuch as she
repudiates falsehood and educates to truth, she condemns hatred and contempt,
and she calls for a spirit of brotherhood; always and everywhere she encourages
- as history clearly shows - works of charity, science and the arts. She asks
only for freedom, so that she can effectively cooperate with all public and
private institutions concerned with the good of mankind. True freedom always
aims at overcoming evil with good. Vince in bono malum.
Your Excellencies, in the year now beginning I am certain that, as you carry
out your lofty mandate, you will continue to accompany the Holy See in its daily
efforts to meet, in accordance with its specific responsibilities, the above
mentioned challenges which affect all humanity. Jesus Christ, whose birth we
have celebrated in these days, was foretold by the Prophet as Admirabilis
Consiliarius, Princeps Pacis, "Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace" (Is 9:5).
May the light of his word, his spirit of justice and brotherhood, and the gift
of his peace, so needed and so desired, a peace which he offers to all, shine
upon your lives, your beloved families and your dear ones, upon your noble
countries and upon all humanity.
