Vatican City, 9 May 2014 (VIS) –
This morning Pope Francis received in audience the secretary general
of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, and the leading executive
officers of the agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations
and specialised organisations, gathered in Rome for the biannual
meeting for strategic coordination of the United Nations System Chief
Executives Board.
In his address, the Pontiff thanked the
those who are primarily responsible for the international system,
“for the great efforts being made to ensure world peace, respect
for human dignity, the protection of persons, especially the poorest
and most vulnerable, and harmonious economic and social development”.
He also congratulated them on the results of the Millennium
Development Goals, especially in terms of education and the decrease
in extreme poverty, adding however, that “it must be kept in mind
that the world’s peoples deserve and expect even greater results”
since “an important part of humanity does not share in the benefits
of progress and is in fact relegated to the status of second-class
citizens”.
Therefore, future sustainable
development goals must be “formulated and carried out with
generosity and courage, so that they can have a real impact on the
structural causes of poverty and hunger, attain more substantial
results in protecting the environment, ensure dignified and
productive labour for all, and provide appropriate protection for the
family, which is an essential element in sustainable human and social
development. Specifically, this involves challenging all forms of
injustice and resisting the 'economy of exclusion', the 'throwaway
culture' and the 'culture of death' which nowadays sadly risk
becoming passively accepted”.
The Holy Father explained that the
spirit that should be “at the beginning and end of all political
and economic activity” may be found in “the encounter between
Jesus Christ and the rich tax collector Zacchaeus, as a result of
which Zacchaeus made a radical decision of sharing and justice,
because his conscience had been awakened by the gaze of Jesus. The
gaze, often silent, of that part of the human family which is cast
off, left behind, ought to awaken the conscience of political and
economic agents and lead them to generous and courageous decisions
with immediate results, like the decision of Zacchaeus. … Today, in
concrete terms, an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers
and sisters whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to
natural death must lead us to share with complete freedom the goods
which God’s providence has placed in our hands, material goods but
also intellectual and spiritual ones, and to give back generously and
lavishly whatever we may have earlier unjustly refused to others”.
“The account of Jesus and Zacchaeus
teaches us that above and beyond economic and social systems and
theories, there will always be a need to promote generous, effective
and practical openness to the needs of others”, he continued.
“Jesus does not ask Zacchaeus to change jobs nor does he condemn
his financial activity; he simply inspires him to put everything,
freely yet immediately and indisputably, at the service of others.
Consequently, I do not hesitate to state, as did my predecessors,
that equitable economic and social progress can only be attained by
joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing
commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested
spirit of gratuitousness at every level. A contribution to this
equitable development will also be made both by international
activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s
peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by
the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private
sector and civil society”.
“Consequently”, the Holy Father
concluded, “while encouraging you in your continuing efforts to
coordinate the activity of the international agencies, which
represents a service to all humanity, I urge you to work together in
promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilisation which, beyond all
differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and
put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity,
especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded”.
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