State of the World address

That’s what Pope Benedict gave to the Diplomatic Corps assembled at the Vatican at the start of this new year. It’s an interesting juxtaposition with the address the Speaker of the House gave to the assembled members of Congress last week here, given the agenda and its scope.

Meeting with diplomats from around the world today in the Vatican’s Regal Room, Pope Benedict XVI addressed several of the most significant problems facing the world today: hunger, the continued arms race, an influx of refugees, and various attacks on human life…

“At the start of the year,” the Pope told the 175 diplomats, “we are invited to turn our attention to the international situation, so as to focus upon the challenges that we are called to address together.”

Benedict did not talk about partisanship vs. partnership. He doesn’t see the scandal of world hunger, the urgency of disarmament or the crisis of humanitarian refuge and aid as political.

Nor the truths of human life.

Finally, the Pope said, “how can we not be alarmed, moreover, by the continuous attacks on life, from conception to natural death?”

The Holy Father condemned continued international pressure to promote policies which increasingly attack human life – even in areas where the culture traditionally supports respect for life.  Areas, he said “such as Africa, where there is an attempt to trivialize abortion surreptitiously, both through the Maputo Protocol and through the Plan of Action adopted by the Health Ministers of the African Union – shortly to be submitted to the Summit of Heads of State and Heads of Government.”

“Equally,” Pope Benedict said, “there are mounting threats to the natural composition of the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, and attempts to relativize it by giving it the same status as other radically different forms of union.”

“All this offends and helps to destabilize the family by concealing its specific nature and its unique social role.”

“Other forms of attack on life are sometimes committed in the name of scientific research, “the Holy Father continued. “There is a growing conviction that research is subject only to the laws that it chooses for itself and that it is limited only by its own possibilities.

Being subject only to the laws you choose, and limited only by the possibilities instead of the rules, is a conviction alright.

Some leaders point to problems and blame others. Benedict lists the conflicts and exhorts the leaders to be part of the solution. 

By way of conclusion, the Holy Father noted that “situations I have mentioned constitute a challenge that touches us all—a challenge to promote and consolidate all the positive elements in the world, and to overcome, with good will, wisdom and tenacity, all that causes injury, degradation and death.

It is by respecting the human person that peace can be promoted, and it is by building peace that the foundations of an authentic integral humanism are laid. This is where I find the answer to the concern for the future voiced by so many of our contemporaries. Yes, the future can be serene if we work together for humanity.”

The example in the post below shows how that can be done beautifully, one by one.