By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ
Cardinal Pietro Parolin gave a
discourse on Thursday, focusing on important themes in Pope Francis’s latest
Encyclical, Fratelli tutti, in order to reflect on the impact
that the crisis generated by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic is having on
the international community and the entire human family.
The high-level online event on
“Fraternity, Multilateralism and Peace” was divided into two panels. The first,
dedicated to the importance of multilateralism, saw Cardinal Parolin and UN
officials reflect on this important theme. The second panel, opened by a
discourse from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious
Dialogue, Cardinal Miguel Ayuso Guixot, analyzed how interreligious dialogue
can contribute to promoting a culture of social justice, dialogue and peace on
the path toward human fraternity.
The virtual meeting was organized by
the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and promoted by the
Mission of the Order of Malta to the UN in Geneva, with the collaboration of
the International Catholic Migration Commission, the Forum of Catholic NGOs,
the Caritas in Veritate Foundation, as well as the Pontifical Lateran
University.
Fraternity at center of Holy See’s
diplomatic actions
In his discourse, Cardinal Parolin
highlighted that to fully understand the concept of fraternity and its place in
the Holy See’s multilateral diplomatic action, it is important to recall that
fraternity was the first theme Pope Francis referred to on the day of his
election as Pope, eight years ago. On that day in fact, Pope Francis said: “Let
us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world, that there may
be a great spirit of fraternity.”
“All the subsequent actions and
activities of the Pontificate have been a natural and coherent consequence of a
path oriented towards it,” Cardinal Parolin said.
Re-echoing Pope Francis’ 2017 message
to the President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Cardinal Parolin
noted that “while solidarity is the principle of social planning that allows
the unequal to become equal; fraternity is what allows the equal to be
different people. Fraternity allows people who are equal in their essence,
dignity, freedom, and their fundamental rights to participate differently in
the common good according to their abilities, their life plan, their vocation,
their work, or their charism of service.”
In the same regard, continued the
Cardinal, fraternity, when applied to multilateral action, translates into “the
courage and generosity to freely establish certain common goals and to ensure
their fulfilment of certain essential norms throughout the world” while
maintaining faith with legitimately manifested will and resolving disputes
through means offered by diplomacy, to achieve “a truly universal common good
and the protection of weaker states.”
Therefore, in the present time – one
year after the start of the pandemic - fraternity is important to help overcome
the current dichotomy between the “code of efficiency” and the “code of
solidarity”, as it pushes the world towards “an even more demanding and
inclusive code,” Cardinal Parolin stressed.
Equal access to healthcare
In line with efforts towards
achieving fraternity, Cardinal Parolin went on to propose some reflections on
access to healthcare, refugees, work, international humanitarian law and
disarmament.
As regards healthcare, the Vatican Secretary
of State highlighted the “indissoluble bond” experienced around the world in
the past year due to the pandemic, which has aroused the awareness that we are
in the same boat and that the suffering of one affects all. He however lamented
that this bond has given way to a race for vaccines and treatments at national
levels, further making evident the gap in access to healthcare between
developed countries and the rest of the world.
On this issue, Cardinal Parolin noted
that the Holy See has issued a set of guidelines, inspired by a conviction of
the importance of fraternity. Also from this perspective, the Cardinal
emphasized that “the international community has an obligation to ensure that
any Covid-19 vaccine and treatment is safe, available, accessible and
affordable to all who need it.”
Care for refugees
“Attention to the neediest and those
in vulnerable situations, especially refugees, migrants and internally
displaced persons, is not only a testimony of fraternity, but a recognition of
a concern for the real needs of our sisters and brothers,” the Vatican
Secretary of State affirmed.
Recalling Pope Francis’ incessant
appeals to leaders and international organizations for a globalization of
solidarity capable of supplanting indifference, he bemoaned the suffering of
refugees which continues to be a “wound in the social fabric of the
international community” even in the year that marks the 70th anniversary
of the establishment of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR).
The Cardinal went on to reaffirm the
Holy See’s support for the underlying vision of the Global Compact on Refugees
which seeks to strengthen international cooperation through equitable sharing
of responsibility for a sustainable solution to refugee situations.
Workers, hard-hit by pandemic
Another group significantly impacted
by global pandemic containment strategies is workers, including informal
workers, small business owners and traders, “who have seen an erosion of their
savings and have often faced systematic barriers to accessing basic health
care,” Cardinal Parolin pointed out.
To respond to this, he proposed that
the traditional format of social dialogue be expanded to include the
involvement of workers’ and employers’ organizations, complemented by actors in
the informal economy, as well as a consideration for environmental protection.
Citing Fratelli tutti, the
Cardinal insisted that we need to think about “social, political and economic
participation that can include popular movements and invigorate local, national
and international governing structures with that torrent of moral energy that
springs from including the excluded in the building of a common destiny.”
Need to strengthen international
humanitarian law
Cardinal Parolin went on to re-emphasize
the importance of strengthening and promoting a respect for humanitarian law,
stressing that it aims to safeguard the essential principles of humanity,
protect civilians and ban the use of certain weapons in the context of war,
which itself, is inhuman and dehumanizing.
He recalled that Henry Durant, the
founder of the Red Cross, was inspired by a sense of fraternity when he
convinced local populations and volunteers to provide aid to parties in
conflict regardless of their affiliation. He added that in the same vein, the
Geneva Conventions of 1949 represent an implicit recognition of the bond of
fraternity that unites peoples, as well an acknowledgement of the need to set
limits in conflicts.
In this regard, the Cardinal
reiterated the Holy See’s hopes that States will achieve further development in
humanitarian law “in order to take proper account of the characteristics of
contemporary armed conflicts and the physical, moral and spiritual suffering
that goes with them, with the aim of eliminating conflicts altogether.”
Disarmament
“The desire for peace, security and
stability is in fact one of the deepest desires of the human heart, since it is
rooted in the Creator, who makes all peoples members of the human family,”
Cardinal Parolin said.
This aspiration, he insisted, cannot
be satisfied by military means alone, and even less by the possession of
nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
He further noted that “it is not
rhetorical to say that war is the antithesis of fraternity as “conflicts always
cause suffering” – in those who experience them, but also in those who fight in
them.
Despite some encouraging signs,
including the re-entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons, Cardinal Parolin laments the huge amounts allocated to armaments,
pointing out that the disproportion between the material resources and human
talents dedicated to the service of death and the resources dedicated to the
service of life is a cause for scandal.
The Cardinal therefore seized the
opportunity presented by the online event to reiterate the Holy See’s
encouragement for efforts by States in the field of disarmament and arms
control towards lasting peace and nuclear disarmament.
Concluding his discourse, the Vatican
Secretary of State noted that it is not enough to proclaim commitment or
encourage efforts in response to these great challenges, rather we are invited
to respond concretely through individual responsibility and the capacity to
share in a reciprocity of relationships through a spirit of fraternity that
will help to overcome isolation. He added that that Pope Francis’ calls demand
a presence and conduct that “responds to the actuality of relations between
states and between peoples, especially when attitudes that abandon the vision of
the common good seem to prevail.”
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