December 17, 2008

UN declaration shows human rights grounded in ethics, says archbishop

UNITED NATIONS (CNS)—The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides a way to “rediscover the true significance of the person” and the “universal value of human dignity,” said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the United Nations. The archbishop, speaking before the U.N. General Assembly on the 60th anniversary of the declaration Dec. 10, said the document shows that the protection of human rights is not just a legal proclamation but something that finds its “source and end in ethics and natural reason common to all men.” The archbishop also spoke of Pope Benedict XVI’s comments about the human rights declaration when the pope gave a speech to the U.N. General Assembly April 18. During the speech, the pope praised the document for being “a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions.” The pope said, “The rights recognized and expounded in the declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high point of God’s creative design for the world and for history.”