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Vatican to UN: Fight Against Death Penalty Needs to be Matched by Fight Against Abortion and Euthanasia

By John-Henry Westen

NEW YORK, September 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to the 61st Session of the United Nation's General Assembly yesterday, a Vatican representative spoke of three primary human rights, the first of which is the "right to life".  Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, President of the Governatorate of the Vatican City State, spoke hopefully about reform of the United Nations in the area of human rights.

"The Holy See regards the promotion of human rights as one of the United Nations' primary forms of service to the world," said the Archbishop.  "It hopes the newly formed Human Rights Council will enhance the enjoyment of those rights on the part of every people and the citizens of every nation."

He recalled the three most important fundamental rights: the right to life, the right to religious freedom and the right to freedom of thought and expression.  Regarding the right to life he said, "the increasing recognition of the sacredness of life, witnessed also by the growing rejection of the death penalty, needs to be matched by a thorough protection of human life precisely when it is at its weakest, that is, at its very beginning and at its natural end."

With regard to the freedom of thought and expression Archbishop Lajolo spoke of the "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to exchange ideas and information and the consequent freedom of the press."  He explained, "the observance of this right is necessary for the fulfillment of each person, for the respect of cultures and for the progress of science."

On these fundamental human rights, he said, no appeals to state autonomy should dissuade the international community from legitimate concerns.  "Every Government must clearly understand," he said, that "violation of the fundamental rights of the person cannot be removed from the attention of the international community under the pretext of the inviolability of a State's internal affairs."

Addressing the reality of the denial of these fundamental human rights in many countries, he concluded, "We must acknowledge, however, that not all fundamental rights - and in particular the three which I have mentioned - are adequately protected in every nation, and, in not a few, they are openly denied, even among States sitting on the Human Rights Council."

See the full address here:
http://www.holyseemission.org/27Sep2006Lajolo.html

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