Whence Human Rights?

“When there is no agreement about what a human person is, there is no possibility of a shared vision of human rights. John Paul II was aware of this problem. In a speech to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps in 1989 he observed that ‘the 1948 Declaration does not contain the anthropological and moral basis for the human rights that it proclaims’. He then implored his diplomats to work on promoting the Christian understanding of human dignity based on sound anthropological and moral foundations.” — Tracey Rowland