Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Defence of human dignity is the only ray of light in the darkness of war, a light which can illuminate the mind, a little flame that can dissolve hatred and resentment, a fine red thread thanks to which man does not succumb, but continues along the path of love which leads to God”. These words by the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Cardinal Renato Martino, at the end of an International Course in Humanitarian Law for Catholic Military Chaplains, give an idea of profound and complex reflection undertaken by about 80 Catholic Military Chaplains and 30 experts from all over the world gathered at Palazzo San Calisto in the Vatican, 12 and 13 October.
“War is never a right - the Cardinal said - and even when dictated by the necessity to defend the innocent it must follow precise rules compatible with human dignity. In this perspective - said the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which organised the initiative together the Congregation for the Bishops and the Pontifical Councils for Interreligious Dialogue and for the Unity of Christians - not simply for any political or strategic calculation, must international humanitarian law be numbered among the most effective expressions which emanate from the truth of peace”. And from this stems the Catholic Church's full support for all that humanitarian law proposes and the sincere commitment of every authentic believer to enact its principles even in the extreme and brutal situations of armed conflict.
Earlier, during the first of the morning's four conferences focussed on cooperation between religions and civil society, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien emeritus Military Ordinary for the United States, had mentioned among other things the subtle moral distinction, between legal interrogatory techniques and torture in the case of terrorist prisoners. The general secretary of Caritas Jerusalem Claudette Habesch, speaking on the defence of human dignity in the case of armed conflict, was the sad spokesperson of daily violations of human rights and humanitarian principles in the Holy Land, underlining the activity of the Catholic Church to defend justice and peace in that region.
Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Holy See Permanent Observer to the United Nations and International Organisations in Geneva, highlighted the opportuneness and the difficulties involved to combine the traditional symbols of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent in the new symbol of the Red Crystal (a red cube posed at an angle), as established by the 3rd Protocol at the Geneva Meetings. With regard to the difficult relation between, nuclear weapons and humanitarian law from the moral point of view, Judge Raymond Ranjeva former vice-president of the International Court in the Hague, recalled that the Court decreed that the threat of use of nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to international law due to the juridical obligation of de-nuclearisation. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 15/10/2007; Righe 36; Parole 498)
