The United Nations recently held the “Summit of the Future” from its New York headquarters, where Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Pope's Secretary of State, spoke on key issues that tomorrow’s generations must confront.
At the two-day summit, the UN adopted a landmark 42-page declaration, titled “Pact of the Future,” that seeks to challenge the 193 UN member nations to deliver on promises to improve the current quality of life throughout the world and maintain it for the future. Covering topics such as world conflicts, climate change, and human rights, the declaration is a pledge to work towards a safer, more peaceful, sustainable, and inclusive world.
In his address to the UN, Cardinal Parolin called the Pact a “source and a reason for hope,” noting that the UN can still launch a multilateral effort to improve the lives of people around the world. He expressed his hopes that the discussion would proceed with a foundation of respect for human dignity, integral human development, and the sovereignty of all nations.
He went through several key points of concern, beginning with poverty. He noted that the topic was particularly close to Pope Francis’ heart and suggested that it would require international reform among financial institutions, as well as the implementation of debt forgiveness for poorer countries.
“Eradication of poverty must remain the overarching goal of all future action, bearing in mind that development is the name for peace,” the cardinal said.
Another topic of great concern, according to Cardinal Parolin, is the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. He stressed the need for regulation of the AI industry in order to address ethical concerns such as data protection, accountability, bias, and AI's impact on employment.
He also touched upon nuclear weapons and the need for their elimination. He pleaded with UN diplomats to commit themselves to “total disarmament” of stockpiles of nuclear weapons, suggesting that the removal of such an existential threat to the future of the world is of paramount importance to its integral development.
As he concluded his remarks, Cardinal Parolin expressed the Vatican’s reservations over the UN’s use of certain terms in relation to sexual and reproductive health rights, as well as gender.
He reiterated the Catholic Church’s stance that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, its opposition to abortion, and its understanding that gender is rooted in “biological sexual identity.”
Read more from Cardinal Parolin’s address at the UN’s “Summit of the Future” at Vatican News.
