human rights, a point of encounter between the doctrine of the Church and

contemporary society.

The world's great religions and philosophies have illuminated some

aspects of these human rights, which are concisely expressed in "the golden

rule" found in the Gospel: "Do to others as you would have them do to you".1

The Church has always affirmed that fundamental rights, above and beyond

the different ways in which they are formulated and the different degrees of

importance they may have in various cultural contexts, are to be upheld and

accorded universal recognition because they are inherent in the very nature

of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God. If all human beings

are created in the image and likeness of God, then they share a common

nature that binds them together and calls for universal respect. The Church,

assimilating the teaching of Christ, considers the person as "the worthiest of

nature"2 and has taught that the ethical and political order that governs

relationships between persons finds its origin in the very structure of man's

being. The discovery of America and the ensuing anthropological debate in

sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe led to a heightened awareness of

human rights as such and of their universality (ius gentium). The modern

period helped shape the idea that the message of Christ - because it pro-

claims that God loves every man and woman and that every human being is

called to love God freely - demonstrates that everyone, independently of his

or her social and cultural condition, by nature deserves freedom. At the same

time, we must always remember that "freedom itself needs to be set free. It is

Christ who sets it free".3

In the middle of the last century, after the vast suffering caused by two

terrible world wars and the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by totalitarian

ideologies, the international community acquired a new system of interna-

tional law based on human rights. In this, it appears to have acted in con-

formity with the message that my predecessor Benedict XVI proclaimed

when he called on the belligerents of the First World War to "transform

the material force of arms into the moral force of law".4

Human rights became the reference point of a shared universal ethos- at

least at the level of aspiration - for most of humankind. These rights have

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1 Lk 6:31; Cfr. Mt 7:12. 2 ST. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, 9, 3. 3 Veritatis Splendor, 86. 4 "Note to the Heads of the Belligerent Peoples", 1 August 1917.