December 10 marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Vatican has a program of events planned to commemorate the occasion, including a meeting dedicated to reflection and thought and a public concert. Upon the announcement of these events, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace stated:
The Church holds that human rights express the transcendent dignity of human beings, the only creatures to be loved by God for themselves, the end and never the means; and she believes that the 1948 Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man was a moment of fundamental importance in mankind’s development of a moral conscience that accords with human dignity.
In statements like this, the Holy See may seem like leaders in the human rights community (besides the fact that they continue to call it the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man while the rest of the world calls it the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). However, when it comes to LGBTQ rights, the Vatican is sadly lagging behind.
As the Vatican has been planning its program of events for December 10, member states of the European Union have been drafting a declaration to condemn discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. France plans to present this declaration on December 10.
The Vatican—no surprise here—stands in stark opposition to this declaration. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the apostolic nuncio to the United Nations, stated:
If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations. For example, states which do not recognize same sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.
He went on to say the proposal represented a “modern savagery that will dismantle our society from the inside out.”
After a media storm, Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi tried to water down Migliore’s inflammatory statements. He said:
Obviously no one wants to defend the death penalty for homosexuals, as some would insinuate. The well-known principles of respect for the fundamental rights of the person and the rejection of all unjust discrimination — recognized clearly by the Catechism of the Catholic Church itself — evidently exclude not only the death penalty, but all violent or discriminatory penal legislations in relation to homosexuals…
[This proposal] introduces a declaration of political value that could result in systems of control, according to which, every norm—not only legal, but also related to the life of social or religious groups—which does not place every sexual orientation on exactly the same level could be considered as contrary to respect of human rights.This could clearly become an instrument of pressure or discrimination against those who, just to put a very clear example, consider marriage between a man and a woman to be the fundamental and original form of social life, and as such, [believe] that it should have a privileged place.
Father Lombardi only rephrased Migliore’s original statement in a more diplomatic manner (which is interesting considering Migliore is the diplomat).
The Holy See is using the old argument that the right to religious freedom comes before all other human rights to cover up the fact that they want to deny rights to the LGBTQ community. Even so, the international human rights community has acknowledged that while religious freedom must be honored, any form of religious extremism still can lead to violence and discrimination.
Whatever the package, these statements demonstrate that Vatican is in great conflict when it comes to human rights. In the end, the sad fact is that the Vatican really does not support human rights for all.
