CNS STORY: Archbishop tells U.N. that development issues have ethical dimension

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CNS Story:

UN-MARTIN Mar-4-2005 (680 words) xxxn

Archbishop tells U.N. that development issues have ethical dimension

By Tracy Early
Catholic News Service

UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- Religious leaders have a distinctive role in appealing to the conscience of world leaders that there be an ethical approach to development issues, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland, said in a lecture at the United Nations March 3.

But the archbishop, who was formerly Vatican nuncio to U.N. agencies in Geneva, said religious insights could also provide "a framework within which believers and nonbelievers alike can work."

"Religious language contains much of the wisdom which has been refined over the centuries through a dialogue on the deeper questions of humankind," he said.

Archbishop Martin, also a former Vatican justice and peace official, gave the main address at an event sponsored by the Vatican's U.N. mission in connection with a weeklong meeting to prepare for the next session of the Commission on Sustainable Development April 11-22 in New York.

This event was chaired by Oscar R. de Rojas, director of the U.N. Financing for Development Office and a consultor to the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace. He said it was unusual in discussions of development to go beyond questions of national interest to take into account the ethical dimension.

Archbishop Martin noted that this year was the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council document "Gaudium et Spes," the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, and said he was presenting his reflections in accordance with its "method of dialogue."

As an example, he said the religious concept of creation, with its implication that the world cannot be used "just according to our own private whim," harmonized with the international community's concept of a form of development that the ecology could sustain over generations.

Archbishop Martin said development should be worked out in the context of "a creative tension" that kept in balance three principles: the dignity of every individual person, the unity of the human family and care for the environment.

Every individual has inalienable rights and unique capacities, and the poor individual who is to be helped by development should therefore be seen as a brother or sister, not as a mere statistic, he said.

Declaring that what people living in poverty wanted above everything else was "voice," he said this meant establishing "systems of participation" and helping them find work where they could express their own creativity.

Regarding the second principle, the religious concept that God created humanity as a family, Archbishop Martin said this was in accord with the findings of genetic research, and implied not only a rejection of racism but attention to such issues as fair trade arrangements and the preferential option for the poor.

He said the Catholic Church has always spoken of respect for private property, but never made it an absolute.

"All possession brings with it social responsibility, a social mortgage, which conditions which behavior is to be judged moral and which immoral," he said.

Observing that this concept had traditionally been discussed largely in terms of land and natural resources, he said that today it should be broadened to include "intellectual property" such as the results of medical research.

With reference particularly to drug companies and disputes over pricing of their products such as drugs to combat AIDS, he rejected the "hoarding of knowledge" in the hope of gaining greater profits.

Recognizing the rights of intellectual property provides an incentive to creative individuals, but "the real purpose of creativity in medical research is not simply profit but a fundamental good of the human community, better health for all," he said.

On care for the environment, Archbishop Martin said an "ecological mortgage" should be added to the "social mortgage" on private property.

Development does not have to bring "environmental degradation," and even "those powerful interests who are slow to change" can be brought by public opinion and consumer pressure to recognize the importance of protecting the environment, he said.

END

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