The Church in the community of nations

This is the reason why the Holy See is present within the diplomatic framework of the community of nations  –the only religious, not political, institution therein. «Reawake and inspire consciences», this is the task of the Church’s international agenda, according to Mamberti. The Social Doctrine of the Church, in fact, is rooted in the heart of man. As is the Charter of the United Nations. In the preamble of the Charter, the founders of the United Nations reaffirmed «faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small». The choice of the word «faith» is revealing. Faith makes reference to  deeply held beliefs. So, the United Nations is based on this faith in man’s rights that all peoples can relate to, no matter what their religious beliefs may be.

Mamberti explains that «the Holy See has always worked to uphold the centrality of the human person. This vision comes from the human person’s true nature. No one should lose sight of the basic principle that man is at the center of the concerns of the international community».

The Church’s struggles

Mamberti presents an example. He remembers the Church’s struggles for life, he underlines that «even if the right to life is affirmed, it is also ever increasingly questioned. It suffices to think about the debate on abortion, on human embryo experimentations, on euthanasia. Countries speak about “reproductive health” euphemistically. And “to die with dignity” is just a slogan to support euthanasia. It is very important to be alert to defend the right to life».

The Holy See diplomatic work is never ending, and it is always more sophisticated. Diplomacy must «fight» a change of vocabulary that Silvano Maria Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the UN office in Geneva, described as the change of a way of thinking: «The change of the vocabulary –Tomasi wrote –  began with the sexual revolution of 1968 and asserted itself after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989». It was then that the two blocks of the Cold War were replaced by a plurality of actors in the international scenario. «In this new situation – Tomasi explained in a debate on February 17, 2011– the United Nations felt freer.  Moreover: they felt charged with the specific mission to promote practical priorities that – according to the advisors involved – would have led to a more rightful and free world.»

From 1989 on, the new language to sustain this mission has been built up on a series of «key words»: human globalization, sustainable development, good governance, world ethic, cultural diversity, dialogue among civilizations, quality of life, gender, equal opportunities, homophobia, sexual orientation, safe abortion, future generation rights, non-governmental organization, partnerships, civil society, participative democracy, transnational networks, consensus building, inclusive approach, agent-actor of social transformation, best practices, sexual and reproductive rights, right to choose, equal commerce, diverse forms of family.

On the other hand, the words that belong to the Christian-Judaic tradition are excluded, or even tend to disappear: truth, morality, conscience, reason, earth, will, parents, spouse, husband, mother, father, son, daughter, chastity, complementariness, service, authority, hierarchies, law, commandment, dogma, sin, nature, marriage.

The Church’s new (and old) challenges

This new vocabulary is – Tomasi explained – «a mix of words of authentic human aspirations and values with words that represent an individualistic ideology taken to the limit. The latter inspires and guides the managers of world governance. This is how we get to a systematic and lasting transition of words in the documents of the United Nations: from government to governance, from authority to autonomy and rights of the individuals, from spouse to partner, from happiness to quality of life, from given to built, from family to family in all of its forms, from dignity sufferance to the right to die, from majority decision to consensus, from dogma to freedom of interpretation.»

The language of specialized fields also evolved: the Holy See path to financial transparency forced Holy See officials to come to terms with the terminology of international financial law. How to be a «secure» country in the community of nations was the most important topic during the talks with MONEYVAL – the body of the Council of Europe that evaluates the financial adherence of the member States.

Nevertheless, the diplomatic contributions of the Holy See, disseminated like gems inserted in several international documents, gave its fruits. For example, the right to assistance for victims of cluster bombs was a struggle fought by the Holy See in the drafting of the International Convention in Dublin in 2008. The Cluster Munition Convention was signed in Oslo at the end of 2008.

Mamberti reminded the students of Studium Aquinatis that «the Holy See has always been active in the diplomatic front of disarmament. The Holy See was among the founding members of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in 1957, which goal is to limit, reduce and eliminate nuclear armaments and to facilitate the shared use of atomic energy for pacific purposes. The Holy See has been and is among the countries that negotiated the treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as other related international conventions and treaties. With regards to cluster bombs, the Holy See was one of the most active States: I personally signed on behalf of the Holy See the adhesion to the Convention and I deposited the ratification documents on the first day it was possible in Oslo on December 2008. The Holy See wanted to send a signal to the international community».

A piece of the history of the negotiations of the Cluster Munitions Convention shows the struggles the Holy See is facing in the international arena. After gaining acknowledgement for the right of victims to be assisted, a delegation wanted to amend the paragraph concerning this right, asking that the assistance needed to be «gender sensitive». The Holy See was very aware of  this: from this addition, each country could be forced to be «gender sensitive» and to develop legislation for a new kind of «health care system» – this process is called “soft law”. This is why the Holy See  worked in order to make clear that everything was applied according to the legislation of each State. It is the same reason why the Holy See did not want to sign the document for the UN declaration on decriminalization of homosexuality, thus becoming the target of international complaints. It was not because the Holy See is against «LGBT rights». The Holy See maintains that, already, the Universal Human Rights Declaration covers all human beings. The so-called «gender sensitivity», or the declaration on decriminalization of homosexuality, would in some ways assess that there are men that are more equal than other men. The question is: why to state the need to decriminalize the homosexuality, why to have anti-homophobic law, when Universal Righet already protect all the human beings from every discrimination?

The Church’s struggle for human rights

The Holy See cares deeply about human rights. The concern for religious freedom has always been one of the core commitments of the Holy See. «Christians or other believers – Mamberti says – are persecuted and discriminated in subtle ways, and this happens when religious freedom is reduced to freedom of conscience or freedom of worship. Religious freedom does not only deal with a personal religious component, it also deals with community». Mamberti recalled that «John Paul II said that religious freedom is the litmus test of human rights. Where religious freedom is under threat, all human rights are under threat. I can assure you that defending religious freedom is the main task of the Holy See, and this brings benefits not only to Christians and Catholic believers, but to all believers.»

The human person is at the core of the Holy See International agenda. That is why the Holy See is committed to the common good. «Human rights – Mamberti says – are a common patrimony to defend, without any alteration. Fundamental rights are not the fruit of a consensus or of majorities, they do not come from the State or from any other human institution. Human rights are part of the human being: they are  a gift  that God gave to humanity».

Recently, the Church has been accused of being a champion of a New World Order, because of the recent reflections of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace about an «authority with universal competences», a super partes international organization to regulate international finance and also the relations among States in order to get to the Common Good – as John XXIII put it in Pacem in Terris. Is this authority a sort of great Leviathan? Or is international finance the Leviathan, as msgr. Mario Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, maintained? The United Nations seems to aim to a New World Order, and this is the reason why it is creating – in its documents – a sort of new anthropology.

A book has been published in Italy that brings to light for the first time in a direct and detailed way the anti-Catholic aversion of the UN and the EU: «Contro il cristianesimo. L’ONU e l’Unione Europea come nuova ideologia  [Against Christianity: The UN and the European Union as a New Ideology] », by Eugenia Roccella and Lucetta Scaraffia.  In the introduction to the volume, Roccella and Scaraffia identify the roots of the new ideology as the «separation between sexuality and procreation». «More –they write– than a different model of sexual behavior, but conceptually analogous to those that have preceded it in history, this is a question of a real and true utopia, because it is based upon the idea that human beings can find happiness in the realization of their sexual desires, without the moral, biological, social, and relational limitations linked to procreation. This utopia has its roots in the sexual revolution in the West during the 1960′s, and it has not yet been disputed, even though it seems not to have kept its promises. It is a utopia that echoes another, one that brings painful memories: that the selection of new human beings can create a better, more healthy, more beautiful humanity».

It is not just a matter of words. It is a matter of ideology. The conceptual scenario has its own dynamics, and this leads to concrete transformations in several branches of social and political life. Religious freedom and the way it has been handled is an example. An approach to religious freedom linked to intolerance was first included in the Declaration on the principles of Tolerance of UNESCO in 1995 and was then promoted in the Resolution 2004/36, adopted in the 60th session of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations in 2004. A new chapter was then opened with resolution 61/164 (Combating the defamations of religions), adopted in the General Assembly of the United Nations December, 19th, 2006. In that resolution, religion is used to limit other basic freedoms (the right to freedom of expression) and to oppress religious minorities when some impose with force and terrorism their religious ideologies, and deny a place in the public sphere to others’ faith and beliefs.

As always, one should look back in time. It was in 1981 – when the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief – that the concept of tolerance  was placed side by side to religion or belief. «But tolerance – Tomasi explained – is a tool, not a right. In fact, while with religious freedom we mean the guarantee of Government that individuals have freedom of belief and the guarantee of freedom of worship for individuals and groups – including the freedom not to believe in any god– religious tolerance is about accepting or permitting beliefs or religious practices that are different from one’s own.»

These are just some of the hurdles the Holy See faces in its commitment to the Common Good. A commitment that comes out from believing in the inherent dignity of human beings. The same belief that the founders of the United Nations identified in reaffirming «faith» in fundamental human rights, and in the dignity and worth of the human person.

The document of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is ponderously titled – «Towards reforming the international financial and monetary system in the context of global public authority» -  and its remarks were the most specific. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace calls for the advent of a new world centered on a universal political authority. The idea is not unprecedented – it was previously evoked in the 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris of John XXIII. The document also proposed taxation measures on financial transactions (and suggested that revenues could contribute to the creation of a “world reserve fund” to support the economies of countries hit by crisis); forms of recapitalization of banks with public funds that make support conditional on “virtuous” behavior aimed at developing the real economy; more effective management of financial shadow markets that are largely uncontrolled today. Such moves would be designed to make the global economy more responsive to the needs of the person, and – the document says – less «subordinated to the interests of countries that effectively enjoy a position of economic and financial advantage».

The path to the document had been long and transparent. In May, after a media briefing with journalists to announce a conference about the Mater et Magistra, mons. Mario Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, announced the journalist that another media briefing was up to come, and it would have been about a future note for the reform of the monetary system. The Vatican Secretary of State was obviously informed. There had been several sketches of the document, as usual. The first sketch was drawn down by Michel Camdessus, former president of the International Monetary Fund, consultant of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and  part of the French delegation at the last G20 meeting. Then, document passed through several hand, bankers like Antonio Fazio – former governor of the Bank of Italy – and Ignazio Musu – economist and part of the advisory board of the Bank of Italy. The document shields itself with many citations from previous social encyclicals, and actually there is nothing so new.

In the Caritas in Veritate there is also a paragraph – the so-called «world authority paragraph» – in which it is stated that

«in the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a trongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the Principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. . . »

Even Caritas in veritate had been sketched by many hands. An encyclical is such an important text – it is addressed to all the men of good will, and it is inspiration and part of the diplomatic work of the Holy See – that everybody would like to stress it to its own part. Among the people that glossed the Caritas in veritate,  there were economist like Stefano Zamagni and Luigino Bruni, but also the then governor of the Bank of Italy Mario Draghi and the then Italian minister of Economy Giulio Tremonti. Even Ettore Gotti Tedeschi had been involved in “glossing” the encyclical. He was still not president of the IOR (Institute for Religious Works), but he was already sure that the economical collapse came from the lack of children. No children, no creativity, no hope for the future, no economy: this simple four-words-speech-scheme is the Gotti Tedeschi’s favorite one.

After the release of the encyclical, there had been a sort of split on how to consider Caritas in veritate. Laissez-faire theorists were critical about some economical analysis, but always underlined how good was the “make more sons” line. Social economy theorists loved more the part that evoked the tunes of Populorum Progressio, the Paul VI social encyclical, in which the Pope claimed that «the new name of peace is development». The fight of interpretations was – and still is – intense. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was invited to talk to the meeting about Caritas in veritate without either informing  the Pontifical Council Justice and Peace. And the medias were in some way divided between these two lines of the encyclical, and were totally unaware that the truth is in the middle.

The most prophetical part of the encyclical was the so-called “world authority” paragraph. In fact, this has been interpreted by many Catholics a sort of “big leviathan”. But there is a deeper reason why the Holy See has been doing this proposal. And one can find these reason looking back in history to see when this world order had been stated. The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. The treaties resulted from the big diplomatic congress, thereby initiating a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of a sovereign state governed by a sovereign. In the event, the treaties’ regulations became integral to the constitutional law of the Holy Roman Empire. It was there that the Holy See began to the fight not to be ejected from the concert of nations. It was there that the Holy See became to be subjected to the secularizing process. An increasing lack of influence that brought the Vatican State to be attacked and then defeated by national States, and to sign agreements with the States – which are the various Concordats.

Peace of Westphalia is quoted in the last document released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and it is not a case. In the last years, many have talked about a New World Order. This new world order had been theorized in several think-tanks all over the world – from the Trilateral Commission to Bildeberg Group – and in the mean time finance prevailed on policy. The new world order will be an economic-based one. This seems to be the time for the change to come. So, while the Holy See was going on in signing Concordats with the national States, the world governance got always more supranational. The scenario is similar to the one of the Peace of Westphalia times. Within the Holy See, many are aware of the risk for the Church – and religions as well – to be put aside. This is the sense of the call for common rules and a world authority with universal competences.

When the document of Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace had been released, there had been a slight disagreement within the Vatican Curia. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the IOR, complained to have not been even consulted during the preparation of the document. No consulation was the fact that when one then delves into the analyses and specific proposals, it is also stunning how strong the divergence is between what is written in the document of the pontifical council for justice and peace and what has been maintained for some time in the financial commentaries published in L’Osservatore Romano by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. For example, not even one line in the document attributes the global economic and financial crisis to the collapse in the birth rate and to the resulting higher and higher costs of population aging.

 Gotti Tedeschi did not remain silent. On November 4  L’Osservatore Romano published an editorial by him that reads like a complete repudiation of the document of the Pontifical Council for justice and Peace. Gotti Tedeschi wrote that «the true origins of the collapse of birthrates and the consequences of the increase of taxes on the GDP to absorb the costs of the ageing of the population were wrongly interpreted. The effects of the decisions made to compensate for these phenomena were underestimated, especially with the de-localization of production and consumer debt». For the president of IOR,  «to deflate the total debt – public, banking, business and family – and bring it back to pre-crisis levels, that is, to around 40% less, it is possible, though not advisable, to cancel a part of the debt with a type of “preventive agreement,” where creditors are paid at 60%».

More. Someone inside the Roman Curia – sources whisper that it was Gotti Tedeschi himself, very active indeed (he also wrote down an article for the Italian magazine Tempi) – complained about the document with the cardinal Bertone, secretary of State. Medias report that Bertone complained to have not been even informed by document. It was not true, since he had been constantly kept informed of the document. And this is what he said, sources from inside the Curia report. Probably, the truth is in the middle: pressed by the vain discontents memeber of the Curia that were protesting, Bertone said that he knew about the document, not about his contents, and he managed a summit to solve the question. The news about a summit convened in the Secretariat of State on November, 4^th leaked to the press. The conclusion of the summit was that this binding order would be transmitted to all of the offices of the curia: from that point on, nothing in writing would be released unless it had been inspected and authorized by the Secretariat of State.

This is how the red alarm for the new document of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has been defused. In the mean time, very few know about the international activities of the Holy See, and the financial transparency brought on with the establishment of the Authority for Financial Information can have some contraindication. The game is on the international impact of the Holy See. The same game the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace played by asking for an World Authority with Universal Competences. Since the world is now globally ruled, the Holy See want to give is contribution to write common rules. In order these common rules will be for the common good of humanity, and not just for the good of few. Will this commitment be consumed in the bonfire of vanities?