(Vatican Radio) Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, spoke to the 70th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations on Tuesday (Oct. 20).
Below, please find the full statement:
Statement of H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza
Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations
Second Committee of the 70th Session of the General Assembly
Agenda Item 20: Sustainable development (a)-(h)
New York, 20 October 2015
Mr. Chair,
By adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community made a firm commitment to seek a life of dignity for all and protect the planet.
For too long, development has been understood in terms of ever greater economic growth and wealth accumulation, oftentimes at the expense of the environment and of human life itself. This concept of development has fueled an unrestrained quest for the biggest profit margin and has driven exploitations of peoples and an assault on our common home. Such a model of development cannot be sustainable, because it reduces human beings to production tools for ever greater profits and accumulation of wealth by a few, and treats the earth as an inexhaustible resource to be exploited.
Thus the Holy See agrees with the Secretary General’s Report on the vital importance of mainstreaming the three dimensions of sustainable development and the need for a “paradigm shift in development thinking.” Pope Francis, in his Address to the UN General Assembly on September 25, insisted that this paradigm shift must always be “guided by a perennial concept of justice and constantly conscious of the fact that, above and beyond our plans and programs, we are dealing with real men and women who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights.”
We need a multidimensional understanding of poverty and development because the human person is multidimensional. As Pope Francis urged in the same Address, sustainable development plans must secure for persons 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 and for so many, 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.”
There is no authentic development if it is not development of the human person, and an essential aspect of this process is the agency of each person. My delegation concurs with the Secretary General’s Report that “Integral human development and the full exercise of human dignity cannot be imposed. They must be built up and allowed to unfold for each individual, for every family, in communion with others, and in right relationship with all those areas in which human social life develops – friends, communities, towns and cities, schools, businesses and unions, provinces, nations, etc.”
Integrating the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development cannot be a mere “bureaucratic exercise of drawing up long lists of good proposals” or finding the right “theoretical and aprioristic solution”, both of which run the risk of being top-down agendas forced upon the poor. The adoption of more mutually beneficial forms of development based on trade is a step in the right direction, provided that in trade the poor are “allowed to be dignified agents of their own destiny” and equitably share the fruits of development.
Exclusion creates scarcity that exploitation turns into profits. When everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. This is the unsustainable development process of the past. We need to challenge and change it, because with it neither people nor planet can survive in the long run.
The serious ecological crisis affects us all, though we are not equally responsible of its causes. The burdens are disproportionately born by the poor, who bear the least responsibility for the problem. The cries of the earth and the cries of the poor are one, because “We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather one complex crisis that is both social and environmental,” that demands an “integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the underprivileged, and at the same time protecting nature.”
This multifaceted crisis is an opportunity to reject the culture of waste for one of solidarity, a call to examine our personal lifestyles, so that we can move from living in excess to living in moderation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis held his weekly General Audience this Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square. In his remarks to the faithful gathered in the Square, Pope Francis returned to the theme of the family, recalling that the family is the natural social institution and the foundation of all human society, based on liberty and fidelity. He said that our ability to give our word and to keep it is one of the great and distinguishing capacities of human being. “Fidelity to promises is a masterpiece of humanity,” he said. “If we look at its daring beauty, we are afraid, but if we despise its courageous tenacity, we are lost.” Please find the official English-language summary of the Holy Father’s catechetical reflections, below
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Dear Brothers and Sisters: In our catechesis on the family, we spoke last week about the promises we make to our children by bringing them into the world. Today we consider the promise of love and fidelity made between husbands and wives, which is the basis of all family life. This promise is called into question nowadays, and seen as somehow opposed to personal freedom. Yet the truth is that our freedom is shaped and sustained by our fidelity to the choices and commitments we make throughout life. Fidelity grows through our daily efforts to keep our word; indeed, fidelity to our promises is a supreme expression of our dignity as human beings. There is no greater “school” to teach us such fidelity than marriage and the family, which are, in God’s plan, a blessing for our world. Saint Paul tells us that the love which grounds the family points to the bond of love between Christ and the Church. In these days of the Synod on the Family, let us pray that the Church will uphold and strengthen the promise of the family, with creativity and with unfailing trust in that faithful love by which the Lord fulfils his every promise.
(from Vatican Radio)…