VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI addresses participants in an international congress on Natural Law: “Legislation frequently becomes no more than a compromise between different interests: there is a move to transform into rights private interests or desires which clash with the duties demanded of social responsibility … all juridical law draws ultimately its legitimacy from rooting in natural law”

Vatican City (Fides Service) - Late yesterday morning, the Holy Father received in audience participants in an international congress on Natural Law, being promoted by the Pontifical Lateran University. In his address the Pope said, “Undoubtedly we are living a moment of remarkable development in man’s capacity to decipher the rules and structure of matter and man’s consequent dominion over nature. We are all aware of the great advantages of this progress but we also see increasingly that this activity threatens to destroy nature. There exists a danger less visible but no less concerning: the method which allows us to penetrate ever more deeply the rational structures of matter makes us ever less able to see the source of this rationality, creative Reason”.
“The capacity to see the laws of material being renders us incapable of seeing the ethical message contained within being, a message called by tradition lex naturalis, natural moral law” the Pope said underlining that for many today “due to an understanding of nature no longer metaphysic but purely empiric” this concept is almost incomprehensible.
It is from the first principle of this law written in the human heart "to do good and avoid evil", that flow all other principles which regulate ethic judgement on the rights and duties of the individual. “Of this nature is the principle of respect for human life from conception to natural end - the Holy Father said -... Such is also the duty to seek the truth, necessary presupposition for all authentic maturing of the person. Another fundamental instance of the subject is freedom… and how can we fail to mention, on the one hand, the demand of justice manifested in giving unicuique suum and on the other hope for solidarity which nourishes in each individual, especially the less fortunate, the hope for help from the more fortunate?” These values express mandatory norms which depend neither on the will of the legislator nor on the consensus which States may give to these norms, since they precede any human law.
“Natural law,” he affirmed, “is the source from which, along with fundamental rights, flow ethical imperatives that must be honoured” the Pope said recalling that modern legal ethics and philosophy reveal the widespread influence of the postulates of juridical positivism. “As a consequence legislation often becomes a mere compromise between various interests; there is an attempt to transform into law private interests or desires that clash with the duties deriving from social responsibility. In this situation, it is good to recall that all legal systems, both internal and international, ultimately draw their legitimacy from their rooting in natural law, in the ethical message inscribed in human beings themselves. Natural law is the only valid protection against the arbitrary of power and misleading ideological manipulation”.
The principle concern, especially for those with public responsibilities, which should be the promotion of a mature moral conscience. “This is the fundamental progress without which all other progress becomes non authentic”. Then the Holy Father underlined that these concepts can be concretely applied to the family. “The Second Vatican Council opportunely underlined that the bond of matrimony ‘by Divine Will is a lasting one, and that therefore ‘For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. (GS 48) Indeed, no law made by man can overturn the norms written by the Creator, without inflicting a dramatic injury to society in what constitutes its most basic foundation. To forget this would mean weakening the family, damaging the children and render precarious the future of society.”
Lastly the Pope reaffirmed “not everything which is scientifically possible is ethically right” and he said: “Entrusting oneself blindly to technology as the only guarantee of progress, without at the same time presenting an ethical code, ... would be an act of violence against human nature, with devastating consequences for everyone”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 13/2/2007 - righe 47, parole 679)