"Today, against a worrisome global background which is primarily the reflection of economic structures that are not matching with human values, fundamental rights seem to be depending on anonymous out-of-control mechanisms and on a vision that is reduced to the pragmatism of the moment." That is what Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, said this afternoon at the Vatican during the ceremony marking the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "It is the universality of the person," he added referring to Benedict XVI’s speech to the UN last 18 April, "the criterion "that makes human rights universal, so to avoid partial enforcements and subjective visions." Failure to protect them "is often highlighted in the attitude of a number of institutions and authorities he observed and is the fruit of the disintegration of the unity of the person around whom there is the aim of proclaiming different rights, of building vast areas of freedom that are yet devoid of any anthropological basis." Recalling the non-hierarchy and the indivisibility of these rights, Cardinal Bertone pointed out the "particular attention" the Church is giving to the rights to life and religious freedom inscribed in the Declaration. (continued)
