Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) – “Words that Matter” is the title of a volume, presented on 30 June at the Holy See Press office, prepared by Bishop Andre Dupuy and published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace together with the “Path to Peace Foundation”. The volume is an impressive testimony of the manifold and articulated presence of the Holy See on the international scene between 1970 to 2000 and it is the latest in a serious of similar volumes: 1987 Paths to Peace; 1998 Serving the Human Family.
“Looking at the index of the volume, said Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, who presented the book - we can appreciate the perseverance with which the Holy See has sustained the major tasks undertaken by NGOs and the United Nations Organisation in particular: keeping and promoting peace, encouraging disarmament and promoting a culture of rejection of war as a solution to disputes between nations, as the Charter of United Nations Organisation affirms; foster development, education to collective responsibility, valorising the activity of the different NGOs and involving poor people in aid programmes to help them; protect and promote human rights, facilitating the building of a world in which nations truly feel part of a family; guarantee equality of nations, calling for strict respect for international law and commitments.”
Archbishop Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, for many years previously Holy See permanent Observer to the UNO, pointed out that “the problems faced are among the most important and relevant of our day and the range from the right to religious freedom to that of social development, from the right to peace to the right to life, from the rights of women and children to the rights of refugees, from the rights of peoples and nations to the urgent problems regarding youth and the future of the world. All these themes are “words that matter” and they find their full significance because they are set in the unitary frame supplied by constant reference to Christian anthropology and the Church’s mission to defend the dignity and fundamental rights of every human person”. SL (Fides Service 1/7/2003 EM lines 28 Words: 407)
