Vatican City, 15 June 2015 (VIS) –
This morning in the Clementine Hall the Pope received in audience the
two hundred members of the newly-recomposed High Council of the
Italian Magistrature (CSM). During his address, Pope Francis spoke
about the complexity of legislation in current times and the variety
of cases which must be responded to, bearing in mind the phenomenon
of globalisation that may at times be a vehicle for concepts and
norms far from the roots of a given social fabric.
“In this context of deep shocks to
cultural roots, it is important for the public authorities, including
those of a legal nature, to use the space allocated to them to
provide stability and to make the foundations of human co-existence
more solid through the recovery of fundamental values”.
Starting from these bases, it is
possible to effectively counteract phenomena such as “the spread of
criminality, even in its economic and financial forms, and the
scourge of corruption, which affects even the most evolved
democracies”. Therefore, “it is necessary to intervene not only
at the moment of repression, but also in an educational way,
addressing in particular the new generations, offering an
anthropology and a model of life able to respond to the highest and
most profound aspirations of the human heart”.
All those in legal office “contribute
to this work of construction, on the front line”, the Pope
continued. “Although magistrates are required to intervene in the
presence of a violation of the law, it is also true that the
reaffirmation of the rule is not an act directed solely at the single
person, but rather goes beyond the individual case to affect the
community as a whole. In this sense, every judicial pronouncement
goes beyond the single procedure, opening up to become an opportunity
for all the community ('the people', in whose name the sentence is
pronounced) to assume this rule, to reaffirm its value and in this
way, even more importantly, to identify with it”.
“In our times, and rightly so,
particular emphasis is given to the issue of human rights, which
constitute the fundamental nucleus of the recognition of the
essential dignity of man. This must be done without abusing this
category, for instance by allowing practices and forms of behaviour
that, instead of promoting and guaranteeing human dignity, in reality
threaten or even violate it. Justice is not done in an abstract
sense, but rather by always considering the person in terms of his or
her real value, as a being created in the image of God and called
upon to be, here on earth, His semblance”.
The Holy Father concluded by mentioning
Vittorio Bachelet, the deputy president of the CSM assassinated by
the Red Brigades in 1980, and he invited the magistrates to follow
his example “as a man, as a Christian and and a jurist in serving
justice and the common good”.
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