GENEVA (CNS): Governments, faith communities and individuals should strive to promote freedom, equality and social justice while respecting the world’s different cultures and religions, a Vatican official said.
Basic human rights “are not subject to historical ups and downs or convenient interpretations”; rather, they are inherent to every person, Vatican representative to the United Nations agencies in Geneva Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said.
The archbishop made his remarks on December 10 on the occasion of Human Rights Day and the start of a year-long commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Speaking during a Human Rights Council session, Archbishop Tomasi said the universal declaration “remains the single most important reference point for cross-cultural discussion of human freedom and dignity in the world”.
He said the rights outlined by the UN General Assembly and adopted on December 10, 1948, are “independent of and, in many ways, the result of all the ethical, social, cultural, and religious traditions” across the globe.
Human dignity transcends all cultural, political and religious differences “and it unites all humans in one family”, he said.
All political and social institutions are thus called upon “to promote the integral development of any person, as an individual and in his or her relation with the community”, the archbishop said.
