ARCHBISHOP MARTIN ADDRESSES U.N. CONFERENCE ON RACISM

VATICAN CITY, MAR 25, 2002 (VIS) - Made public today was a speech given on March 22 by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Holy See permanent observer, during the debate on racial discrimination at the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. The meeting is taking place from March 18 to April 26 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The nuncio remarked that "the events of the past year have brought our attention back to the need for a new vision of how to shape, in our contemporary world, the coexistence of persons, peoples and nations, with their different backgrounds and history."

He went on to say: "The 'moral bankruptcy of racial prejudice and ethnic animosity', to use the words of Pope John Paul II, can only be definitively eliminated through a conscious effort of solidarity and a recognition of the essential unity of the one human family. Terrorism is an affront to human dignity and must be fought vigorously. A fight against terrorism, however, is by definition a right in favor of the rule of law, in favor of relationships between persons and nations that are based on respect for the dignity of every human person and their fundamental human rights."

Archbishop Martin, on the questions of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances, said that "each generation must say 'no' to racism and construct its 'yes' to seek truth, justice, freedom and love, so that every human person may enjoy his inalienable rights, and every people, peace."

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