"We Will Stand Alone"

by John Mallon

One of the world’s "Unsung Heroes" is a strong defender of human dignity at the United Nations. A frank, exclusive interview with Archbishop Renato Martino, the Holy See’s Ambassador to the UN

"What is at stake is the transcendent dimension of man. This can never be made subject to the whims of statesmen or ideologies.

"There is a morality of service to the earthly city which excludes not only corruption, but even more, ambiguity, and the surrender of principles.

"The Holy See considers itself at the service of this reawakening of conscience." (Pope John Paul II, 1995, address to the UN)

What has become widely known as "the culture wars" in the United States, what Pope John Paul II called in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995) the struggle between the "culture of death" and the "culture of life," has become visible at every strata of society for those who have eyes to see it.

A particularly unique and crucial battleground in this war, because of its unique position in the world, has been the United Nations. At the UN, a series of conferences in the 1990s have been dealing increasingly with issues of life and death and who holds power over them, particularly, the discussion of life or death as a "choice," to use the ideological term at the center of the debate. At a breakneck pace, proposals from organizations of great wealth and influence such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and its allies, whose ideological stance departs from central elements of 4,000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition, are practically forcing acceptance of policies that call evil good, and good evil, through the medium of these UN conferences. The "ambiguity" John Paul II sees as something to be rejected is evident at these conferences.

A key tactic has been to set abortion within the context of so-called "rights-based language" so that abortion in years to come will be declared a "human right" for any pregnant woman. From the 1994 Cairo conference on Population and Development through the just-completed 5-year review ("Cairo+5") to the 1995 Beijing Conference on women and its upcoming review next year, to the discussions begun in Rome last year to form an International Criminal Court (with further discussion taking place in New York in July of this year), the strategy has the same goal: to make abortion legal everywhere.

Proponents of this agenda are very influential at the UN. Well-funded "Non-Governmental Organizations" ("NGOs") like International Planned Parenthood, are continually lobbying UN bodies and member delegations. At the United Nations Fund for Population and Development (UNFPA), in fact, the director, Dr. Nafis Sadik, is a former member of Planned Parenthood, and the chairman of the 1994 Cairo conference. Dr. Fred Sai is a former international director of the organization.

Planned Parenthood openly acknowledges — even boasts — of funding as many as 40 national delegations from the poorer developing nations to attend the conferences — in essence, buying their vote. There are no conflict of interest laws at the UN to prevent this, so these delegations can actually be voting the agenda of IPPF rather than for their own country's national interests. More directly, Planned Parenthood, in effect, declared war on the Catholic Church last May 13 (Ascension Thursday, which coincided with the feast of Our Lady Of Fatima) by joining an effort by "Catholics for a Free Choice" to have the Holy See's UN status reduced from Permanent Observer Mission to NGO (Non-Governmental Organization).

We decided to explore these issues with "the Pope's man at the UN," Archbishop Renato Martino, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. We met with him in his New York office on June 24, the day the Preparatory Committee of the Cairo+5 review resumed negotiations to reach consensus on a document to be presented to the General Assembly.

(Note: Archbishop Martino has appealed for more pro-life and pro-family organizations to obtain NGO status at the UN and join the battle.)

Archbishop Martino, the Russian novelist Dostoevsky once said, "If there is no God, then everything is permitted." Pope John Paul II has pointed out that when God is forgotten, human dignity gets trampled. Watching the Cairo+5 process unfold, it appears that, beneath all the rhetoric, the struggle is not of state against state but of unbelief against belief...

Archbishop Renato Martino: If we deny those values, rooted in human nature, which are put by the Creator in human nature — if those values are denied — we can then say that there is a fight, a struggle, between believers and unbelievers. But this fight is not clearly labeled.

What we see is rather a struggle between spiritual values and exacerbated individualism. Individualism leads those who seek that individualism to say, "whatever is good for me is rational and ethical." This brings materialism, hedonism, and so on.

If the most basic principles, including the meaning of words, cannot be agreed upon, can there be a meaningful discussion? Isn't that the crux of the problem? Either there is a God who created human life as sacred, or there isn't. If there isn't, then man can dispose of human life as he pleases, whether it be unborn children or human embryos, with a terrible pragmatism. Is this what we've come to?

Martino: I think so, yes. For individualists, whatever is against the individual is against "me," and so a pregnant woman is entitled to say "this is my body," "I have absolute control over my body." But such a view overlooks the fact that a new life is in my body and that I have to respect that life, that individual, who is growing during pregnancy. Under the principles of individualism, it is "freedom" which counts. But these principles overlook the key point: that my freedom ends where the freedom of another human being begins.

In centuries past, human rights were defined as coming from God. If you cut God out of the picture, then rights are viewed as man-made and can be changed and manipulated at whim...

Martino: That's absolutely true. If you abstract from the idea of a superior being, all the fundamentals, the bases for those human rights, are gone. And so anything can be ethical, legal, acceptable.

International Planned Parenthood Federation, an NGO accredited to the UN, has called for the removal or reduction in standing of the Holy Sec. Is there any precedent for such an action?

Martino: I don't recall it ever happening before, but I didn't give any particular attention to this pretension of those particular NGOs — I think it's a couple of them.

You know, they claim that the Holy See is a religious body, not a state, etc., and I agree with that. But the status of the Holy See is as it is because the international community has accepted the status of the Pope and his headquarters as an international sovereign entity.

This is not something that happened yesterday. It's been almost 2,000 years that the Pope has had this status, and so these attempts look ridiculous. Just recently, in 1992, a declaration of the president of the organization for the corporation for the security in Europe declared that the Holy See is an international sovereign entity, and this characteristic is recognized by all members of that organization, which includes all the states of Europe and North America.

It is true that the Holy See is different from the other states, but, despite that difference, it is accepted because of the role of the Pope over the centuries.

I never reacted because I cannot discuss something that is accepted by 176 states, countries who hold diplomatic relations with the Holy See. They know when they enter into diplomatic relations that the Holy See is not a state as any other. In the end, this is a strange way of understanding democracy. If you don't share my point of view, my position, you must get out. Is that a clear sign of democracy?

You have been a strong supporter of more Catholic and pro-life participation in these UN conferences. In The Hague there were only about 10 or 15 Pro-life NGOs and journalists among more than 800 NGOs and journalists accredited. They wouldn't let more into the Hague Forum. It was like David against Goliath. Has there been a good response to your call for more Catholic and pro-life participation in this process?

Martino: Oh yes. I have seen that since Cairo, the participation of Catholic NGOs has increased, and they are more articulate, more organized. And again, this does not please our opponents who had the monopoly before — dictating their views to delegations. Pro-life and pro-family NGOs are quite active, and this is a good sign.

The United Nations must be a family of nations, where everybody, even those with different views, can get together and dialogue and come to a consensus.

Of course, consensus is always something that implies that each part renounces something, not the essentials, but something, in order to live together and work together. This is true consensus. It is not only one-way.

But is a consensus possible on these fundamental issues? Many are pushing for the recognition of abortion as a universal human right, above national sovereignty — without using those words — and the Holy See...

Martino: This is not negotiable because there is the right to life of the human being inside the womb of the mother. This is not negotiable. You don't bargain a person, a human being, for the sake of other people or their positions. Life is the fundamental human right on which everything is based. If you put death ahead of life, everything, the whole edifice, crumbles.

I was the head of the delegation of the Holy See in Cairo (in 1994). And I can tell you that, at Cairo, we had so many people, delegates, delegations, and other people against us. It was a real suffering for us to see the animosity. I will not mention the hatred of which we were the object, but I will tell you something that happened in Cairo.

During the negotiations toward the end of Cairo, a working group went to draw up a conclusion in favor of abortion and the chairman of the working group started to call upon the delegations that he knew were in favor of abortion. And so it was only at the end — only at the end — that he gave the floor to the Holy See. And of course the Holy See said, "No!" — opposed it.

After that, he adjourned the meeting. But he ignored 17 signs of delegations like-minded with the Holy See who had asked for the floor in order to oppose abortion. And what happened? The next day, the headlines of all the papers in the world read "The Vatican Blocks Cairo Conference", "The Vatican Isolated," "The Vatican Alone," etc., etc.

The next day, this same chairman apologized for the way he had conducted the meeting and had to give the floor to the delegations who had asked to be recognized the night before. These are the tricks and methods — dirty tricks — they played against us. They have tried since then, all along, during the other conferences, to push that idea of abortion.

You sometimes see a surrender on matters of principle — sometimes unwittingly — by the smaller nations intimidated by the power, wealth and "political correctness" of the ideologues. How is the Holy See responding now to this considerable challenge?

Martino: We will stand alone, if need be, to defend just what the Pope said. We have seen several countries, although aiming at the same principles we are defending, at the last minute, withdraw from a position the Holy See defended precisely because of political considerations, although they entirely accept the principle defended by the Holy See. But at the last minute they say, "Oh look, we don't want to displease this one, and that one, and that one."

And so, for political consideration, they accept ambiguous positions, and they defend an ambiguous position.

Can you foresee a time, perhaps in 50 years or so, when the world will look back at the years of legalized abortion as a dark time, and shake its head and say, "How could they have done it?" as we do now over the years of American slavery and the Nazi Holocaust?

Martino: I can conclude with the words of President Menem of Argentina in accepting the award from the Path to Peace Foundation last week. He said, "I'm sure that we will win, because the truth is with us, because life is the highest principle."

A friend said to me "we must pray for those who have been abused by error and wrong doctrine." That seems to be a big part of our mission, does it not?

Martino: By all means, every time we have to "fight" we don't put hate in our fight, absolutely not. We are trying to foster a dialogue between human beings, respecting the dignity of everybody.

Therefore, it's always going to remain in a spirit of Christian understanding and Christian love. This is for sure. We hope that all those who deny this highest principle of life will understand that they are going against themselves, because once you admit that you can kill someone, it's over. It's over. And so that is why we are against capital punishment, we are against abortion, because life is a gift from God, and nobody, nobody can take it from us. •

© Dr. Robert Moynihan, Editor, Inside the Vatican Catholic Magazine

This item 2826 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org