Study: Creation of a world parliament "in full harmony with papal doctrine"

28. juli 2009

On 7 July 2009 Pope Benedict XVI published his first social encyclical called "Caritas in Veritate", charity in truth. In this writing, the Pope contemplated on the nature and consequences of globalization, the global economic crisis and the world order. Benedict XVI stressed the importance of a reform of the United Nations Organization and of international economic and financial institutions. "There is urgent need of a true world political authority," the Pope proclaimed. According to a study published today by the Committee for a Democratic U.N. (KDUN) in Germany, "it is possible to derive from catholic social doctrine the creation of a democratic world legislative which, in particular, has the task to exercise oversight over the executive world authority."

"The establishment of an effective political world authority has been continously advocated by the Holy See since Pope Pius XII in the 1950s and was now again reiterated by Benedict XVI. On this occasion we wanted to look at this concept more closely", Andreas Bummel, Chairman of KDUN and one of the paper's co-authors said. The world order model included in Papal social teaching traced by Mr Bummel and his co-author Maja Brauer, a KDUN board member, is based on principles like subsidiarity, federalism, relative sovereignty of states, human dignity, common welfare of all, democracy and separation of powers. "All this together results in a relatively clear picture of how the Catholic Church's vision of a future world order looks like," Bummel said. Added his colleague, Maja Brauer: "It's a world federalist model."

According to KDUN, the paper's conclusions are particularly relevant to the international Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) which was launched two years ago. Proponents of a UNPA argue that it could start as a consultative body and then gradually develop into a fully-fledged global parliament. As the study claims, this program "is in full harmony with papal doctrine."

Encyclicals such as "Caritas in Veritate" are much noticed Papal statements which are generally used to deal with issues which have high priority for the Church.

Tags: Italy, Vatican