National identities and minorities

10. If the fact that they share a common nature makes all people members of one great family, but the historical character of the human condition means that they have a more intense sense of attachment to particular groups, from their family to their people or nation. The human condition is thus located between universality and particularity in a lively tension which can be remarkably fruitful if it is lived in a balanced and harmonious way.

This is the anthropological foundation for national rights, which are nothing less than human rights considered at this specific level of the life of a community. The first one is the right to exist. ANo-one C neither a State nor a nation nor an international organization C is ever justified in asserting that an individual nation is not worthy of existence.(¹⁵) Its right to exist naturally implies that every nation also enjoys the right to its own language and culture, through which a people expresses and defends its cultural sovereignty.

While the rights of a nation express Aparticular» requirements, it is no less important to emphasize universal requirements, with the duties they imply for each nation regarding other nations and humankind as a whole. The primary duty is undoubtedly to live in a spirit of peace, respect and solidarity with others. Teaching younger generations to live with diversity, to integrate diversity into their own identity, is a major priority in cultural education, given that pressure-groups frequently do not hesitate to use religion for political purposes that are alien to it.

While nationalism implies contempt or even hatred for other nations or cultures, patriotism is an appropriate particular C but not exclusive C love of and service to one's country and people, as remote from cosmopolitanism as it is from cultural nationalism. Each culture aspires to the universal through the best it has to offer. Cultures are also called to purify themselves of their share in the legacy of sin, embodied in certain prejudices, customs and practices, to enrich themselves with the input of the faith and to Aenrich the universal Church itself with new expressions and values» (Redemptoris Missio, 52 and Slavorum Apostoli, 21).

At he same time the pastoral approach to culture relies on the gift of the Spirit of Jesus and his love which Aare meant for each and every people and culture, in order to bring them all into unity after the example of the perfect unity existing in the Triune God» (Ecclesia in America, 70).