Holy See calls at General Assembly for 'renewed' UN to use 'licit force' against terror

“My delegation wishes to recall that it is both licit and urgent to stop aggression through multilateral action and a proportionate use of force,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State told world leaders as the Assembly’s 69th General Debate entered its second week, calling for a “renewed United Nations that undertakes to foster and preserve peace.”

Stressing the "the responsibility to protect,” the principle adopted at the 2005 UN World Summit embodying action to stem atrocity crimes and protect civilians when a State itself is unwilling or unable to do so, he decried recent actual or potential Security Council vetoes and the indifference of some that has prevented the necessary response.

“It is disappointing, that up to now, the international community has been characterized by contradictory voices and even by silence with regard to the conflicts in Syria, the Middle East and Ukraine. It is paramount that there be a unity of action for the common good, avoiding the cross-fire of vetoes,” the cardinal declared.

“Here with you on Monday, I cannot fail to mention the many Christians and ethnic minorities who in recent months have endured atrocious persecution and suffering in Iraq and Syria. Their blood demands of us all an unwavering commitment to respect and promote the dignity of every single person as willed and created by God.”

He noted the trans-national nature of terrorism as in the case of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), called for religious and inter-cultural dialogue and decried the “reductionism” of equating criminal terrorism with a clash of civilizations, which “playing on existing fears and prejudices only leads to reactions of a xenophobic nature that, paradoxically, then serve to reinforce the very sentiments at the heart of terrorism itself.”

Cardinal Parolin also stressed that while the "responsibility to protect" refers to extreme abuse of human rights, legal provisions must be made to protect people against other forms of aggression, such as a financial system governed only by speculation and maximization of profit, or one in which individual persons are regarded as disposable items in a culture of waste.

“It follows, therefore, that the UN and its member states have an urgent and grave responsibility for the poor and excluded, mindful always that social and economic justice is an essential condition for peace,” he declared.