6. CELEBRATING MAN AND HIS RIGHTS

In this regard, the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a reminder to the world. To celebrate these rights is to celebrate man. This moment provides a unique opportunity for the human community to strengthen the respect due to the essential values to which it has subscribed, and on which it has committed itself to build its future. These values must be safeguarded from all compromise on the part of States, international organizations, private groups or individuals. These rights are identified as follows: the right to life, the right to physical and psychological integrity, and the equal dignity of all human beings (cf. article 1).

The year 1998 offers to all people and nations the occasion to assert again with enthusiasm their unreserved approval of the letter and spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

Here, great vigilance is needed. Faithfulness to the Declaration implies the exclusion of all efforts which seek, under the guide of so-called "new rights", to include abortion (cf. article 3), to leave physical integrity unprotected (ibid.), or to undermine the heterosexual, monogamous family (cf. article 16). Some are currently striving for these harmful goals, seeking to deprive some human beings of their fundamental rights, and to impose upon the weakest new forms of oppression (cf. articles 4 and 5). The lies which undergird these efforts inevitably lead to violence and barbarity and introduce the "culture of death".[¹⁶]

As Pope John Paul II has declared: "Human rights transcend every constitutional order". These rights are inherent in each man. They do not result from a consensus which is open to negotiation depending on the forces or self-interests that may be present. The very existence of these rights, recognized and solemnly declared in 1948, does not depend on the relative quality of the formulations which exist in constitutions and laws (cf. article 2.2). Every constitution, every law, which would attempt to limit the possession of these declared rights, or to modify their meaning, should be immediately denounced as discriminatory and, as suggested by the Preamble of the Declaration, as suspect of totalitarian ferments.

It is on this common reference to values, defended at the price of so many tears, that the fabric of the nations can be restored, and that a city of the world, open to the "culture of life" can be built. This ambitious project is not out of reach, but the solidarity between peoples, which is both its nourishment and its fruit, supposes, as a preliminary condition, that the solidarity between generations be affirmed.

As a consequence, the Pontifical Council for the Family invites all people of goodwill, and especially Christian associations, to do their part in making the truth regarding current demographic trends widely known. It invites them to condemn with courage the Malthusian programs which remain totally unjustified and completely in violation of human rights.