The European Christian Political Movement received the following message for which we ask your attention:

"I am delighted to announce that the President of the European Parliament, Prof. Dr. Hans-Gert Pöttering MEP, will be delivering the Inaugural Address of the European Parliament’s Working Group on Human Dignity, on Wednesday 25^th March, in Strasbourg.

On 10 December last year we announced the launch of this Working Group to coincide with the 60^th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  However, much has changed since 1948.  As our common culture has changed, so too has our conceptual anthropology (our philosophical understanding of what man is). 

One important way in which things have changed is in the way that all of the EU countries have become more secular.  How has this transformation altered the understanding of human dignity that the preamble to the UDHR says is “inherent”; and along with the “inalienable’ rights of all members of the human family, is ‘the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

It is crucial to find out – so as to guarantee the recognition of our human dignity, and therefore human rights, for the next 60 years and beyond.  It is the mission of the Working Group, to explore these issues further with a special emphasis on the role that culture (which includes the contribution of Christianity) has historically played in the understanding of the human person.

The meeting starts at 4:30pm, and will end at 5:30pm, in Room SDM.S3.  There will be interpretation.  Please respond by email should you be interested in attending this meeting (and if you would like to be represented, whether your colleague will need a pass to enter the Parliament).

With fervent best wishes,

BENJAMIN HARNWELL
Secretary General of the Working Group on Human Dignity in the European Parliament

The ECPM got the following invitation which we would highly recommend. If you want to participate please confirm your participation as soon as possible to harnwell@hotmail.com

More information on the working group can be found below:

WORKING GROUP ON HUMAN DIGNITY

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights opens with the words: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...” and thereby underlines the mutuality of the parallel concepts human rights and human dignity.

What is an authentic expression of Human Dignity?

What is the true nature of Man?  Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, our creator.  It is precisely this image and likeness which Man acknowledges in himself with such profound awe and respect to call human life sacred; and in so acknowledging, allows the moral sense to testify that certain properties are intrinsic, indelible from conception to natural death.

These properties have come to be known in the modern, secular state as ‘fundamental human rights’, and it is these rights the Working Group will seek to recognise in their fullest capacity by recognising their source.  The most complete expression of human dignity, therefore, is to be found only in recognising Man’s true anthropological and existential nature.  This recognition lies at the foundation of all that the world calls civilisation.

What will the Working Group do?

1)       By recalling that Man’s rights are inalienable from his/her being, and not the product of legal charter, the Working Group will enable the European Parliament to influence policy making across the world.  This understanding is essential to sustain liberty in a free society.

2)       The Working Group will make explicit the point that in believing Man is created in the image and likeness of God lies the most effective protection of Man’s dignity (and therefore his/her rights).  It is for good reason that there are five invocations to God in the US Declaration of Independence.

3)       The Working Group will serve those MEPs who would welcome a formal grouping to support these aims, and will provide briefing notes and assorted material for relevant debates, draft amendments where necessary and organise conferences and seminars.

Why is the current commitment to a rights-led approach not enough?

It is impossible to deny the source of Man’s transcendent dignity, and at the same time maintain that such dignity exists.  The school of ‘humanism’ tried to do just this, and its inevitable failure has left Man in the precarious state of having no inherent rights other than those which the social community deigns to confer on him.  This is an expression of what might be called inauthentic human dignity. 

That which is most sacred about Man is ineffable because it comes from God (“image and likeness”) who is himself ineffable – beyond human description.  International charters can only try to literalise the ineffable.  Our true rights lie ineluctably beyond, and infinitely transcend, any charter; no matter how well-intentioned the attempt to codify them, and regardless of whether these rights are to be ‘protected’ by inclusion in the Lisbon Treaty.

Why does the European Parliament need this Working Group?

Because it is essential to the balance between the rights and responsibilities of the individual and the power of the State.  Recognition of Man’s authentic dignity affects society’s ability to organise itself in a virtuous way politically, so that this balance never crosses the tipping point: it is the basis of the assertion that the proper relationship between the individual and State is that the latter exists to serve the former, not vice versa.

The European Parliament has a Committee on Human Rights.  In order to complement this Committee, the European Parliament needs to support it through a companion grouping promoting Human Dignity, because in our society it is recognition of the dignity of Man that is most lacking, not rights.  The Working Group must redress this imbalance.  Whilst international charters may recognise certain rights arising out of human dignity, who would dare to presume that such charters are themselves the source of such rights?

What is at stake?

People form their politics out of their most deeply held principles and convictions.  A society which holds within the very deepest vault of its culture a belief that God's fullest revelation to Mankind was, for Christians, in the person of Jesus Christ, that he created all men equal, that the central commandment to his people was for them to love one another, and that Man is the purposeful creation of a loving, benevolent God – will have a very different political praxis from one which believes man to be an accidental and meaningless product of survival of the fittest; the exultation of the strong and the elimination of the weak; nature red in tooth and claw.

There is a need therefore to leave room for the personhood of God.  One rightful place for this is in any future ‘Constitutional’ Treaty, as an explicit codification of all that the polity holds most important and enduring.  People who do not believe in God lose nothing when those who do articulate the basis for their own dignity.

Why does European culture and wider society need this Working Group?

The Working Group is not about proselytism.  However, the European Parliament includes MEPs who understand that Christianity is not inimical to the principal values cherished by society – and that it is the spiritual midwife of them.  Such ideas as universal suffrage, the rule of law and equality before the law are specifically manifestations of the Judeo-Christian tradition – even if individual proponents of these causes were not consciously acting because of religious imperatives.  As they are accepted today, these qualities have never evolved naturally in any non-Christian society. 

Some legislatures around the world are currently engaged in a dangerous agenda based on a distorted understanding of the human person which is literally fatally flawed – because they fail to address some of the issues raised above.  This agenda continues to corrupt Man’s true nature.  The dignity of life erodes and the humanity of Man is diminished; the precepts upon which his rights are founded are hollowed out and undermined.

The work of the Working Group should not be misunderstood as a demonstration of intolerance towards other religions.  Indeed, other religions exist around the world quite securely, and their influence in shaping their own cultural and political milieux can be readily discerned and observed.  However, the European Union is not simply a smaller version of the rest of the world, but a specific collection of specific countries, with strong identities formed and influenced through the Christian Faith. 

BENJAMIN HARNWELL                  SECRETARY GENERAL