2. - A celebration for the Church as well

This document is fundamentally secular. An analysis of the philosophical and political underpinnings of this code of rights leads to this conclusion. The philosophical thought on the dignity of each person and the affirmation of their individual prerogatives, fruit of the period of Enlightenment, along the lines of the declaration that accompanied the independence of the United States and the French Revolution, can be found in this document. The Declaration prescinds from different creeds in order to pinpoint the common denominator that unites us as human beings.

However we can and should celebrate this anniversary because, as Christians, we are called on to accompany humanity and also because the deepest roots of the dignity of the human person, proclaimed in this Declaration, have in Christ and the Gospel their most perfect expression, the Church having been the herald of that dignity.

Vatican Council II expressed the vocation and will of the Church to accompany this human adventure in the following manner: "The joys and hopes, the sadness and distress of contemporary man, above all of the poor and of all the afflicted, are also the joys and hopes, the sadness and distress of the disciples of Christ, and nothing that is truly human does not find an echo in our heart [... ] And so, this community feels real and intimate solidarity with humanity and with its history" (Gaudium et Spes, 1).

This general principle has a very concrete application in the Declaration of Human Rights, noble reflection of the highest aspirations of humanity. It is an achievement in human history, since "its DNA can be found in the teachings of the greater cultural and religious traditions of the world" (Kofi Annan, "All human rights for all"). The basic principles found in the Declaration have been integrated in the legislation of nearly all countries. The Church has produced a great number of documents on the human person in recent decades, referring to topics related to human rights. But frequently neither the language, the interpretation of rights, nor the content of the legal texts coincide, in spite of the apparent clarity and simplicity of the text.