Remember where you started

That will likely be the message Pope Benedict XVI gives to the United Nations General Assembly next week, given this 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and what that original document stated.

Archbishop Celestine Migliore said there are too many world crises for the pope to deal with in his speech to the General Assembly on April 18 during his trip to the United States.

But “surely, coming to the U.N. as a pilgrim of peace, he will say that we cannot base our relations on the false notion that might makes right, that we cannot build our future on a simple balance of power,” Migliore said.

“No, our future must be based on respect for universal truths and our common humanity,” he said.

Benedict is keen on addressing, frequently, the tendency to deny the existence of universal truths.

But Migliore stressed that a dialogue “requires a minimum common denominator in the vision that one has of the human person, of human life, and therefore of human rights, of democracy, of freedom, and of coexistence among peoples.”

The archbishop said that in certain places, more than one of these rights are violated or neglected due to the “conviction that states and governments have the power to concede or deny these rights … rather than admit that they are inscribed in human nature.”

Here’s the clue Benedict sent in his advance message to the US.

Do to others as you would have them do to you, and avoid doing what you would not want them to do. This “golden rule” is given in the Bible, but it is valid for all people, including non-believers. It is the law written on the human heart…

In other words….what we can’t not know. But somehow forgot.