VATICAN CITY, FEB. 8, 2004 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II encouraged the reform of the United Nations, so that it will become a moral authority respected by the international community.
The Pope made this request Saturday when he received in audience Julian Robert Hunte, president of the U.N. General Assembly.
“As you know, the Holy See considers the United Nations organization a significant means for promoting the universal common good,” the Pope said in his brief address in English.
“You have undertaken a restructuring aimed at making the organization function more efficiently,” he said. “This will not only ensure an effective superior instance for the just resolution of international problems, but also enable the United Nations to become an ever more highly respected moral authority for the international community.”
The Holy Father dedicated his message for the 2004 World Day of Peace to this topic. In part No. 7 of that message, he said that the “United Nations Organization needs to rise more and more above the cold status of an administrative institution and to become a moral center where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a family of nations.”
This reform is “a necessary prerequisite for the growth of an international order at the service of the whole human family,” the Pontiff said during his meeting with Hunte.
Hunte, 64, is Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Civil Aviation of the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia.
