Development process must promote human dignity, Vatican envoy tells UN
September 25, 2009
The Vatican's representative at UN offices in Geneva has reminded international leaders that the protection of essential human rights is an integral part of development. Archbishop Silvo Tomasi observed that "achieving development is not only a matter of eliminating material poverty." He went on to say that development "cannot be completely without including the ethical and spiritual dimensions of the person."
The recipients of foreign assistance should not be seen as objects, but as active participants in the process of development, the archbishop argued. He called the attention of UN delegates to the words of Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Caritas Veritate: "Man is the source, the focus, and the aim of all economic and social life."
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