Pope Francis'
address to the UN in New York City earlier today was outstanding. Some points which stood out for me:
He spoke out against
trafficking of human beings and human organs and
tissues, which includes trafficking of fetal organs and tissues:
"Our world demands of all government leaders … concrete steps and
immediate measures for ... putting an end as quickly as possible to... human
trafficking, the marketing of human organs and tissues, the sexual exploitation
of boys and girls, slave labour, including prostitution, the drug and weapons
trade, terrorism and international organized crime."
He affirmed the right to education, and the rights of parents as prime
educators of their own children:
"the right to education ...is ensured first and foremost by
respecting and reinforcing the primary right of the family to educate its
children, as well as the right of churches and social groups to support and
assist families in the education of their children. "
He supported the family as the essential building block of society,
which governments ought to protect, and which includes preserving the rights to religious freedom and education:
"government leaders must do everything possible to ensure that all can
have the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity and to
create and support a family, which is the primary cell of any social
development. In practical terms, this absolute minimum has three names:
lodging, labour, and land; and one spiritual name: spiritual freedom, which
includes religious freedom, the right to education and other civil
rights."
He reminded us of
the presence of the natural law within
each person, of the wonderful distinctness of
man and woman, and the necessity to
protect all human life : "we recognize a moral law written into
human nature itself, one which includes the natural difference between man and
woman (cf. Laudato Si’, 155), and absolute respect for life in all its stages
and dimensions (cf. ibid., 123, 136)."
The Pope also warns
against "carrying out an ideological
colonization by the imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which
are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible." This comes
across as a knock against western nations attempting to impose their
"ideals" of population control and sexual liberation by spreading a
contraceptive mentality and pushing sexual abuses such as the normalization of
homosexual relations upon societies which are rightly opposed to such moral
diseases.
He decries the religious persecution occurring in our world:
"I must renew my repeated appeals regarding to the painful situation of
the entire Middle East, North Africa and other African countries, where
Christians, together with other cultural or ethnic groups, and even members of
the majority religion who have no desire to be caught up in hatred and folly,
have been forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their
cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the
alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to
peace by their own lives, or by enslavement. These realities should serve as a
grave summons to an examination of conscience on the part of those charged with
the conduct of international affairs. "
He urges us to respect human life in every form, including those we
tend to consider less valuable - the unborn, the elderly, the sick…:
"The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the
foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for
the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the
elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those
considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a
statistic."
This respect
necessarily calls all of us to a spirit of service to one another: "Such
understanding and respect call for a higher degree of wisdom, one which accepts
transcendence, rejects the creation of an all-powerful élite, and recognizes
that the full meaning of individual and collective life is found in selfless
service to others and in the sage and respectful use of creation for the common
good. "
May we all take his
words to heart.
All
quotes from the Pope's speech are from <http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-s-address-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly>
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