Nice Lyrics, but can he dance to it?

Pope Benedict XVI met with United Nations International School music students during his visit.
Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

this is excerpted from an article from the New York Times

In Speech, Pope Urges Promotion of Human Rights

UNITED NATIONS — Benedict XVI, who was a young German prisoner in the war that forged the United Nations, addressed that body Friday as pope, insisting that human rights — more than force or pragmatic politics — must be the basis for ending war and poverty.
“The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security,” Benedict told the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters.
“Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace,” the 81-year-old pope said.

. . .

And in a passage that will have particular resonance for the current United Nations leadership, which is trying to establish the right of the outside world to intervene in situations where nations fail to shield their own citizens from atrocities, the pope said that “every state has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights.”

. . .

“If states are unable to guarantee such protection,” the pope said, “the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations charter and in other international instruments.” In an apparent allusion to countries that claim such international actions constitute intervention in their national affairs, he said instead they “should never be interpreted as an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty.”
He added, “On the contrary, it is indifference or failure to intervene that do the real damage.”


Copyright 2008 April 18, 2008 The New York Times Company By WARREN HOGE and IAN FISHER



hmmm . . .

Intolerance teaches hate. Hate has lead to oppression and violence. How many gay children have to suffer, how many have to die? This may be the forced out “lapsed-Catholic” in me speaking. But the Vatican’s militant stand against, and open coffered support for the suppression of ANY gay rights might justly call for a little intervention.

See you in Rome?

- - - David