Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
New York (Fides Service) – “The person with disabilities has every right to be a subject and an active agent in the everyday affairs of human existence. These persons are rich in humanity. Each has rights and duties like every other human being. Disability must not be regarded as a punishment or curse. Rather, it is an ordinary occurrence or circumstance of human existence which can and does fully integrate persons with disabilities into daily interaction with all other persons.” Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Holy See Observer to the United Nations said this when he addressed an Ad Hoc Committee on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 19 June 2003 in New York. Underlining that the world of the persons with disabilities relies on solidarity, the Archbishop said: “ It is a place where humanity receives the strongest impulses and resources for a world based on solidarity, hope and love. It is a place where normality and stereotypes are challenged and civil society is moved to search for that crucial point at which the human person is fully himself or herself…It has been twenty-seven years since the United Nations first published the Declaration on the Rights of the Disabled. Much has changed and there have been many advances in science, access, acceptance, health care, understanding and hope. In its support of this progress and hope, the Holy See is convinced that in a society rich in scientific and technical knowledge it is possible and necessary to do more in the various ways required by civil coexistence: from biomedical research for preventing disabilities, to treatment, assistance, rehabilitation and new social integration.” AP (Fides Service 20/6/2003 EM lines 21 Words: 242)
