27 settembre 2006
Address by
Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo
President of the Governatorat of the Vatican City State
at the General Debate of the
61st General Assembly of the United Nations
New York, 27 September 2006
Madam President,
(On-going divisions and the temptation of violence)
1. Not so long ago it appeared that our world was growing, at a pace beyond our control, into a single global village. Today’s reality, by contrast, appears more and more fractured. The world is divided by culture, faith, wealth and levels of material advancement, and even more by attitudes towards power, authority and cooperation. Our efforts to overcome divisions and to harmonize differences have been hesitant, at times even half-hearted. Attempts to strengthen the United Nations structures and procedures for the new millennium seem thwarted by our own shortcomings. As the recent struggle between Israel and Hezbollah has tragically demonstrated, it is not so much the want of peacemaking and peacekeeping experience and resources which leaves vulnerable non-combatants to suffer and die; prior to this there exists the difficulty of moulding a consistent political will on the part of the international community.
In the story of the Tower of Babel, the ancient world has left us an image of our current divided state. The confusion of tongues at Babel is the symbol of the divisions, misunderstandings and hostilities spawned not by nature, but by human pride. Human pride hampers the acknowledgment of one’s neighbour and the recognition of his or her needs. Today, that same pride has given rise to a new barbarism that threatens world peace. Terrorists, and their various organizations, are the contemporary barbarians, who reject the best achievements of our civilization. Even in an order of quite a different nature it cannot be denied that also superpowers, regional powers, aspiring powers and oppressed peoples can yield to the temptation to believe, despite the evidence of history, that only force can bring about a just ordering of affairs among peoples and nations, and in the world community. The ideology of power scorns any restraint placed upon the use of force. It can go so far as to regard the possession of nuclear weapons as an element of national pride, and it does not exclude the outrageous possibility of employing nuclear weapons against its adversaries. Currently eight countries – and others would like to join their ranks -- possess nuclear armaments comprising approximately twenty-seven thousand nuclear warheads – enough to destroy our planet many times over. Meanwhile, the implementation of the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty appears to be stalled and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty still needs to be ratified by some countries to enter into force. How can we stand still?
(The United Nations as a response)
2. This Organization was founded on a very different understanding of human affairs: while evil can and sometimes must be restrained by force, peace can only be achieved by shared labours aimed at securing a decent and dignified life for all. Due to the East-West struggle, the United Nations was able to achieve only an impoverished sort of peace. After the end of the Cold War, however, and the experience of innovative responses to the ethnic and religious conflicts of the 1990s, the birth of a new millennium offered new opportunities for realizing humanity’s hopes for a just and peaceful world in which all people can live in dignity. Recently the Secretary-General’s proposals set this Organization on the path of reform; its lofty goals, however, will be reached only by overcoming the narrow confines imposed by the dominance of national interests so that we may open ourselves to the vision of a world both reconciled and based on solidarity. For this reason the Holy See firmly believes that the community of nations is called to strengthen the bonds that unite us and to foster every form of cooperation that enhances the dignity of all members of the one human family. For this same reason the Holy See continues to be an advocate of the United Nations and favours the ongoing reform of the United Nations in the fields of peacebuilding, human rights, development, management and ethics.