HOLY FATHER WELCOMES NEW AMBASSADOR FROM GREECE

VATICAN CITY, MAY 26, 2000 (VIS) - Pope John Paul today accepted the Letters of Credence of Stelios Rocanas, the new ambassador from the Hellenic Republic. In his speech of welcome, he noted that the Holy See's diplomatic activity "is a service motivated not by any national interest, not by narrowly institutional and confessional views, but by loving concern for the common good of all peoples and nations."

"Nowadays," the Pope continued, speaking English, "diplomacy must also face the challenges presented by globalization in order to overcome threats to peace and development such as the poverty of countless human beings, social inequalities, ethnic tensions, environmental pollution and respect for human rights and political freedom."

The Holy Father declared that "efforts to address these questions will founder unless they are based upon an objective criterion of moral accountability. The effort to establish an international court of justice for crimes against humanity is one expression of the demand for such a criterion in international public opinion. Yet ironically, the call for an objective criterion of moral accountability is in many cases accompanied by the spread of a relativistic approach to truth, which effectively denies any objective criterion of good and evil.

"The root of this dilemma ... is the tendency to exalt individual autonomy at the expense of the bonds which unite us and make us responsible for each other. Society needs a coherent vision which embraces both the dignity and inalienable rights of each individual, especially the weakest and most vulnerable."

John Paul II pointed to "the new impulse towards unity on various levels" within Europe, saying that this "must be based on moral and spiritual values. ... If Europe is to be faithful to its finest traditions and aspirations, if there is to be that new unity desired by so many, then Europe must draw afresh from the deep springs of true humanism which brought those traditions and aspirations to birth."

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