CENTRALITY OF MAN IN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PROCESSES

VATICAN CITY, JUN 5, 2001 (VIS) - Made public today was the text of a Letter from Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, addressed to Roberto Rojas Lopez, president of the 31st Assembly of the Organization of American States, held in San Jose de Costa Rica from June 3 to 5.

In the Letter to Mr. Rojas, foreign minister of Costa Rica, Cardinal Sodano emphasizes the necessity of preserving the centrality of man "in any political and economic processes, as the Holy Father recently recalled, affirming that 'ethical discernment in the context of globalization must be founded upon two inseparable principles. The first is the inalienable value of the human person, source of all human rights and of every social order. The human being must always be the end and never the means, the subject and not the object, much less a commodity of exchange. The second is the value of human cultures, which no external power has the right to weaken, much less to destroy'."

"The Holy See, glad to be able to again express its support and encouragement to the Organization through these general assemblies," asks God to enlighten "the politicians responsible for the States of the Americas and the Caribbean in order that they make every effort that the multilateral projects influence in an effective way the material and spiritual development of all the members of your peoples."

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