TO PARLIAMENTARIANS: SERVE COMMON GOOD, PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS

VATICAN CITY, SEP 23, 2000 (VIS) - Presidents of the 15 parliaments of the European Union, meeting in Rome for a conference, were welcomed to the Vatican this morning by Pope John Paul who, in his speech to them in French, underlined the need of governments to serve the common good and to protect human rights.

Calling their conference "a highly significant sign of the process of European unification," the Pope told the presidents that they "are witnesses of the convergence between the interest of your respective countries and the interest of the larger unity of Europe." He noted that the European Union, in serving its citizens, "is pledged to maintain their cultural diversity and to safeguard the values and principles of its founders."

The Holy Father pointed out that "the European Union has already developed shared institutions, with a system of checks and balances of power, which safeguard democracy. The time seems ripe to synthesize these achievements in an arrangement which is both less complex and more effective," in order "to satisfy the aspirations of its peoples and to ensure that the common good is served."

"In the Church's social teaching," he went on, "the notion of the common good applies at every level of organization in human society." And he observed that, in addition to "a national common good" there is "a continental and even global common good" because of the economic interdependence in the world today.

John Paul II asserted that "if the European Union were to move to the point of adopting a formal constitution, it would have to choose the kind of system which it finds more suitable. ... The Church stresses, however, that all systems must have as their objective the service of the common good. Moreover, every system must resist the temptation to remain selfishly closed within itself."

He went on to say that it was "a source of deep satisfaction for me to see that the fruitful principle of subsidiarity is increasingly invoked." Calling subsidiarity "a pillar of the Church's social teaching," he explained that "it is an invitation to distribute responsibility at the various levels ... so that only those responsibilities which the lower levels are unable to exercise for the sake of the common good are transferred to the higher levels."

"The protection of human rights is one of the imperative requirements of the common good," Pope John Paul underscored in closing remarks. He also noted that "the European Union is engaged in the difficult task of composing a 'Charter of Fundamental Rights'." Referring to past conventions and charters concerning human rights, he stated that such declarations mark an "inviolable area which society regards as not being subject to interference from the play of human power. Further still, it is recognized that power exists in order to protect this area, the focus of which is the human person."

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