HUMAN RIGHTS QUESTIONS AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

VATICAN CITY, NOV 20, 1996 (VIS) - Archbishop Renato Martino, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, spoke yesterday afternoon in New York on Item 110 (B): Human Rights Questions: Religious Intolerance.

"Last year," he recalled, "the General Assembly reaffirmed that freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief was a human right derived from the inherent dignity of the human person and that it is guaranteed to all without discrimination." It is, he added, "increasingly perceived as the foundation of the cumulative rights of the person."

Archbishop Martino highlighted the international community's promotion and protection of human rights since the UN was founded in 1945, through such instruments as the 1948 "ground breaking Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion and Belief and the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights.

He stated: "My delegation wishes to stress that freedom of religion ought not to be confused with freedom from religion, which is the result of an exaggerated and distorted separation of church and state."

"One of the principal causes of intolerance is the fear of differences. ... My delegation regrets to note that in too many regions, believers are still subjected to serious discrimination, oftentimes at the hands of officials whose countries' Constitutions recognize the right to religious liberty and to freedom of conscience. ... There also exist numerous subtle forms of discrimination based upon religion."

"Tolerance does not demand," the nuncio said in concluding remarks, "that one share the other's religious conviction or practices," but rather that one respect and not impede them. And he cited Pope John Paul's words to the UN in 1995: "Different cultures are but different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence."
DELSS/RELIGIOUS FREEDOM/UN:MARTINO VIS 961120 (300)