Argentine bishop warns against distortion of human rights

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Apr 17, 2006 / 22:00 pm

In his Easter message, Bishop Baldomero Carlos Martin of San Justo, Argentina exhorted faithful to have a proper understanding of human rights, “because there is a risk that they become ‘warped rights’ if we forget that it is Christ who reveals to man his authentic dignity as a person.”

Bishop Martini began his Easter message by expressing hope that “in Christ may we experience that God is love,” adding that “in the risen Christ the new man is revealed.”  He also called on Christians to remember that “authentic human rights are those that have as their basis human dignity.  Human rights, unhinged from man as image and child of God, if they do not encompass of all man and all mankind, become warped rights and denigrate man’s dignity as a person.”

In addition, Bishop Martini said that Christians “cannot remain indifferent when human rights are disconnected from the dignity of all of man and all of mankind, from conception to natural death and everything in between, of the dignity of man as man and woman as woman, of children, of young people, of families.”

“We must enlighten the temporal realities,” he continued, “with the strength of the Gospel, with the strength of the Risen One so that politics, justice, laws, society and the economy may be at the service of man and his dignity, and not vice-versa.”

Bishop Martini insisted that “as believers and as humans we must protect authentic human rights that include all and they must be respected in all.  They are not the property of ideologies but rather of a humanity that does not forget nor turn its back on its origin and its Liberator.”