Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale624

ALLOCUTIONES

I

Ad Sessionem Legatorum Consilii Europae.*

Mr President,

Dear members of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the

Council of Europe,

I am very grateful to the Honourable Mr Çavuşoğlu for the kind words he

addressed to me on behalf of the Bureau and I extend to all of you a cordial

welcome. I am happy to receive you on the sixtieth anniversary of the Euro-

pean Convention on Human Rights which, as is well known, commits Mem-

ber States of the Council of Europe to promote and defend the inviolable

dignity of the human person.

I know that the Parliamentary Assembly has on its agenda important

topics that deal above all with persons who live in particularly difficult

situations or are subjected to grave violations of their dignity. I have in mind

people afflicted with handicaps, children who suffer violence, immigrants,

refugees, those who pay the most for the present economic and financial

crisis, those who are victims of extremism or of new forms of slavery such

as human trafficking, the illegal drug trade and prostitution. Your work also

is concerned with victims of warfare and with people who live in fragile

democracies. I have also been informed of your efforts to defend religious

freedom and to oppose violence and intolerance against believers in Europe

and worldwide.

Keeping in mind the context of today's society in which different peoples

and cultures come together, it is imperative to develop the universal validity

of these rights as well as their inviolability, inalienability and indivisibility.

On different occasions I have pointed out the risks associated with rela-

tivism in the area of values, rights and duties. If these were to lack an

objective rational foundation, common to all peoples, and were based exclu-

sively on particular cultures, legislative decisions or court judgements, how

could they offer a solid and long-lasting ground for supranational institutions

* Die 8 Septembris 2010.