Papal delegate reminds Rio +20 conference: human person is central
June 22, 2012
Addressing the Rio +20 conference on June 22, the Pope’s personal representative strongly emphasized that the human person must be the center of plans for sustainable development.
Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, the retired Archbishop of Sao Paulo, reminded participants that the original Rio conference had affirmed this principle: “Standing at the center of the created world is the human person – and, therefore, also at the centre of sustainable development, as affirmed by the First Rio Principle.”
The Brazilian cardinal affirmed the Church’s support for “a more just distribution of the abundant goods of this world,” and called for bold efforts to ensure everyone’s right to food, water, health, and education.
Cardinal Sherer also gave the conference a pointed reminder that the promotion of legal abortion is thoroughly inimical to the cause of development. He said: “Imposing death upon the most vulnerable human lives--namely, those in the safest sanctuary of their mothers’ wombs--cannot conceivably be brought under the nomenclature of health-care or simply health.”
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