THE SECRET OF PEACE LIES IN RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

VATICAN CITY, JAN 1, 1999 (VIS) - At 10 a.m. today, the Pope celebrated Mass in the Basilica of St. Peter's on the Solemnity of the Mother of God and for the 32nd World Day of Peace.

After having mentioned in the homily that the first day of the year is consecrated by the Church to the Mother of God, he said that, "the Mother of God and of men holds in her heart and meditates upon all of the great and difficult problems of mankind, helping all to cross the thresholds of the "years, of the centuries, of the millennia."

Evoking the events of this century, John Paul II especially recalled the two world wars: "the cemeteries, the tombs of the victims, the families destroyed, the weeping and the hopelessness, so much misery and suffering."

"How can we forget," he said, "the death camps, the children of Israel brutally exterminated, the holy martyrs like Fr. Maximillian Kolbe, Edith Stein, and so many others?"

The Pope declared that "our century is also the century of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man", recalling what he had said in his message for the World Day of Peace of 1999: "The secret of true peace lies in respect for the Rights of Man. The recognition of the innate dignity of each member of the human family... is the foundation of liberty, justice, and peace in the world."

In concluding, he underlined the fact that humanity "gives in the influence of evil. However, solicited by grace, humanity always rises again and guided by strength of the redemption, she advances towards the good."

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