ARCHBISHOP MAMBERTI ADDRESSES INTERPOL GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Vatican City,  (VIS) - Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States, yesterday addressed the eighty-first session of the general assembly of the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), which is currently being held in Rome on the theme: "Challenges for police facing contemporary criminal violence".

Archbishop Mamberti noted that "crime has undergone a substantial increase, both in quantitative terms and as regards the use of violence. The characteristics of criminal activity have evolved in a worrying fashion, as the aggression and atrocity of incidents has augmented dangerously. Furthermore, criminal activities have now assumed a planetary scale, with systems of coordination and criminal pacts which traverse national frontiers".

"The struggle against all forms of violence, especially in its most brutal forms, presupposes a moral duty to help create the conditions necessary to ensure violence does not arise and develop. People who work with the forces of law and order, and the police organisations you represent, are well aware that the most effective antibody to any form of criminality is a country's citizens. Alliance and solidarity between citizens and police is the strongest bastion against criminality".

The archbishop went on: "Actions that help create a society ordered for the common good include the removal of factors which give rise to and nourish situations of injustice. In this field a primary and preventative role belongs to education inspired by respect for human life in all circumstances. Without this, it is not in fact possible to create a strong social fabric, united in its fundamental values and able to resist the provocation of extreme violence. In this context, the most important place in which human beings are formed is the family. There children experience the value of their own transcendent dignity, as they are accepted gratuitously on the basis of the stable and reciprocal love of their parents. There they experience the first forms of justice and forgiveness, which cements family relationships and acts as a foundation for the correct insertion into social life".