Pope addresses global audience at U.N.
Pontiff says human rights the key to solving many of the world's problems
NEW YORK - Pope Benedict XVI told diplomats at the United Nations on Friday that respect for human rights was the key to solving many of the world's problems, while cautioning that international cooperation was threatened by "the decisions of a small number."
The pontiff, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on his first papal trip to the U.S., said the organization's work is vital. But he raised concerns that power is concentrated in just a handful of nations.
"Multilateral consensus," he said, speaking in French, "continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a small number."
The world's problems call for collective interventions by the international community, he said.
Benedict, only the third pope to address the United Nations, made the remarks after three dramatic days in which he repeatedly discussed America's clergy sexual abuse scandal.
The setting contrasted dramatically with the intimacy of a meeting Thursday, in which he prayed with weeping victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests.
Addressing a wide-range of issues
Speaking in French and English from the Assembly's green marble podium, he gave a wide-ranging address on issues such as globalization, human rights and the environment.
The international community must be "capable of responding to the demands of the human family through binding international rules," said the 81-year-old pope, who spoke after meeting privately with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
He said the notion of multilateral consensus was "in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community."
While Benedict did not mention any specific country, this appeared to be a reference to the United States, which led the 2003 invasion of Iraq even though the Security Council refused to approve it.
The Vatican strongly opposed the recourse to war.
Benedict called for "a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation."
On human rights
In an apparent reference to the conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur, the pope said that every state had the "primary duty" to protect its citizens from human rights violations and humanitarian crises but outside intervention was sometimes justified.
"If states are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter and in other international instruments," he said.
The pope called human rights, particularly religious freedom, "the common language and ethical substratum of international relations," and added that promoting human rights was the best strategy to eliminate inequalities.
"Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace," he said in an apparent reference to social causes of terrorism.
Benedict called for religious freedom to be protected against secularist views and against majority religions that sideline other faiths — an apparent reference to Muslim states where some Christian minorities report discrimination.
"It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights," Benedict said.
Across from the U.N., several hundred supporters, many of them Hispanic, gathered behind metal police barricades.
"Benedetto!" many shouted in Spanish.
A group of New Jersey Catholics held up a banner for the German-born pope that combined German — "Willkommen Pope Benedict XVI" — and English sentiments: "You Rock!"
A small anti-pope contingent included a group calling itself Forum for Protection of Religious Pluralism.
Financial consultant Padmanabh Rao, a Hindu from Woodbridge, N.J., complained that the Vatican is converting people in India to Catholicism.
Queens contractor William Salazar, who identified himself as a Navajo Indian, said Catholic priests "came to America and they killed our children. Now the pope is sending priests all over the world who are raping our children."
Before the pontiff's speech, Benedict and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met alone for 15 minutes.
Visit to synagogue
Later on Friday, the German-born pope was due to visit a New York synagogue just before the start of the Jewish Passover holiday.
He will also visit a Manhattan parish founded by German immigrants in 1873.
On Thursday, he held a surprise meeting with victims of sexual abuse by priests in an effort to heal scars from a scandal that deeply tarnished the Catholic Church in the United States.
What remains to be seen is whether Benedict will continue to talk about the sexual abuse crisis. He is widely expected to broach the subject on Saturday when he says Mass for priests, deacons and members of religious orders at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a papal spokesman, said that Benedict and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley met with a group of five or six abuse victims for about 25 minutes, offering them encouragement and hope. The group from O'Malley's archdiocese were all adults, men and women, who had been molested when they were minors. Each spoke privately with the pope and the whole group prayed together.
One of the victims, Bernie McDaid, told The Associated Press that he shook the pope's hand, told him he was an altar boy and had been abused by a priest in the sacristy of his parish. The abuse, he told Benedict, was not only sexual but spiritual.
"I said, 'Holy Father, you need to know you have a cancer in your flock and I hope you will do something for this problem; you have to fix this,'" McDaid said. "He looked down at the floor and back at me, like, 'I know what you mean.' He took it in emotionally. We looked eye to eye."
Olan Horne, another Boston-area victim who prayed and talked with Benedict, told the AP, "I believe we turned the pope's head a little in the right direction."
Both men have worked with church officials in the aftermath of the crisis, and met with a new office established by U.S. bishops in response to the scandal.
Their sentiments were echoed by O'Malley, who called the meeting "a very moving experience for all who participated."
Benedict's address to the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities was among the most anticipated of his trip, but was overshadowed by the meeting with victims.
The pope, a former academic, said academic freedom has "great value" for the schools, but does not justify promoting positions that violate the Catholic faith.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24194118/