I know what you mean; then I’ll have your question in mind and try to answer you in next part! check that out some hours later! (I think I’m gonna post it tonight)

Dear Susan:

That isn’t the way it was for all of us. I was a Christian who left the church to become a Baha’i but not because I found Christianity useless. It was because the Bab’s story sounded just like the story of Christ and I felt I needed to accept both or reject both. But I had no grounds for saying one was true and the other false.

You’ve found Baha’i great (useful) because it was similar with christianity to you; then you find it much enjoying when you believe in both. You’re a bi-religion and you’ve picked this way of point of view to life to have a better feeling. It spiritually is useful for you! maybe one day you picked one of them, maybe not!

“Your comparison of the Catholic church to Hamas, MB, and Hisbullah is extremely offensive, biased, and unfounded. You are speaking of groups that SOME call terrorist organizations, and while the Church certainly has a marked past, I know very few intelligent people who would currently classify it as a terrorist organization.”

I think you are missing my point. These organizations named may have terrorist wings associated with them but in the case of Hamas at least, they started out and continue to have as their major focus social equity and charitable activities. Their popularity rests with the fact that they *deliver.* My point is that even though Article 25 is part of the UNDHR, charitable activities do not equate with a respect or committment to human rights, because there are plenty of organizations which engage in such activities which have no such committment whatsoever. I am not suggesting that the church engages in terrorist activities, only that charity and respect for human rights are not the same thing.

You wrote:

“However, before I can answer your question about when they affirm freedom of conscience, women’s rights, ect first I need to know what you define as those things.”

For the time being I’m willing to let the church itself define them, if it has done so anywhere. But I didn’t just speak of women’s rights, I spoke of *egual rights* for women. Abortion is an entirely different question. When I say egual rights, I mean egual to men. Men don’t have abortions.

“If you are speaking of things like women as priests, that’s not about competence but rather about symbolism.”

Interesting. But what does it symbolize, then? Still, I’m willing to grant that religions may make certain exceptions when it comes to things like equality. Baha’is, for instance, do not allow women to sit on the Universal House of Justice, though every other administrative post is open to them. We have no real explanation for this, just that Abdu’l-Baha said it should be this way and we would know the wisdom of it in the future. We also don’t encourage women to serve in the military, because we do think women have a unique role in bringing life into the world and they should not take it away. Still, the equality of the rights of women and men is a principle which the Baha’i Faith explicitly upholds. We just have to admit we have a few exceptions.

As for Catholicism, granted Vatican II accomplished a good deal, but don’t you see the present Pope as undoing much of that?

You wrote:

“As far as freedom of religion goes, it’s very clear in the Catchechism that the RC church accepts those who are of other religions and clearly advocates tolerance. I don’t have the Catechism with me right now but I can get page numbers.”

I’d definitely like to see that. You can probably find it on the internet. What exactly would you mean by “accepts those who are of other religions”? I think Pope John XXIII had one thing in mind but judging by the statement made by Ratzinger before he became Pope, DOMINUS IESUS , he seems to believe something else.
Have you read that statement? It can be found here: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html

However, ratification also doesn’t necessarily makes us accountable in international courts, so you are not entirely correct in saying that is the only reason. International human rights law functions in such a manner that you only go to non-domestic courts if the trial or other domestic procedure is deemed a violation of human rights. That would be a hard case to make for a case that was tried in the US….and there is, in fact, an Inter-American (covers N. and S. America) court of human rights where cases from the US have been brought and most of the time they don’t go all the way through for this very reason.

I said the UNDHR doesn’t contain explicit support for specific economic responsibilities or specific economic theory, obviously with the ensurance of any human rights will cost money. This is why we pay taxes – to have a judicial system, schools, ect. I think you and I simply differ on how much money should be alliocated where, and that is exactly why the UNDHR doesn’t lay this out, because setting such a thing up would be a violation of democratic principles…..and I would hope that we would both agree that it is only in a democracy where human rights principles can truly flourish.

Your comparison of the Catholic church to Hamas, MB, and Hisbullah is extremely offensive, biased, and unfounded. You are speaking of groups that SOME call terrorist organizations, and while the Church certainly has a marked past, I know very few intelligent people who would currently classify it as a terrorist organization. Also, Hamas, MB, and Hisbullah are also all POLITICAL religious organizations. This goes back to my previous argument of why church leadership should stay out of politics.

However, before I can answer your question about when they affirm freedom of conscience, women’s rights, ect first I need to know what you define as those things. If you are speaking of things like abortion, that’s not in the UNDHR. If you are speaking of things like women as priests, that’s not about competence but rather about symbolism.

After the 2nd Vatican Council, many things in the RC church changed – including an increased importance of lay leadership in the church, therefore increasing what many would say are “women’s” rights. As far as freedom of religion goes, it’s very clear in the Catchechism that the RC church accepts those who are of other religions and clearly advocates tolerance. I don’t have the Catechism with me right now but I can get page numbers. Now, certainly as with any religion, many people who call themselves Catholic may be extremely intolerant of other’s beliefs or practices. However, again, I say this is why it is important for church leadership to stay OUT of politics.

Your right about the fact that the UNDHR was ratified by proclamation of the General Assembly not individual countries. I assumed we did not ratify it on the basis of the Reagan administration’s later repudiation of this document. But at the time, we voted for it. But it was most definitely conceived as a statement of objectives to be pursued by Governments. Therefore Article 25 applies to the responsibilities of governments not charitable organizations.

You wrote:

“Other treates or conventions – like the ICCPR, CDW, ect – are ratifiable, and you are correct in saying that the US has not ratified many of these types of treaties. The response of many of the US Ambassadors to this – and even those who are supportive of the UN (unlike Bolton or Kirkpatrick) – is that it is because the US already maintains these principles in their own constitution.”

How can that possibly be a legitimate reason for not ratifying treaties which contain these principles? Clearly we don’t want to ratify them because this makes us accountable in international courts, and the US has never been willing to place itself under the jurisdiction of international courts.

You wrote:

“With regards to the Catholic church upholding principles of human rights, Catholic charities are extremely well known for work they are doing in other countries to combat poverty.”

But you just asserted that the UNDHR doesn’t include economic responsibilites. Yes, the Catholic church, like Hamas, like the Muslim Brotherhood, like the Lebanese Hizbullah does a lot to combat poverty. But where have they affirmed freedom of conscience, of religion, of free speech, etc.? Where have they spoken up for women’s equal rights?

Also, you are flat out wrong when you say that the US has refused to ratify the UNDHR, because the UNDHR is simply not ratifiable….it is considered automatically adopted by any country belonging to the UN. It’s a declaration, not a treaty or convention. Other treates or conventions – like the ICCPR, CDW, ect – are ratifiable, and you are correct in saying that the US has not ratified many of these types of treaties. The response of many of the US Ambassadors to this – and even those who are supportive of the UN (unlike Bolton or Kirkpatrick) – is that it is because the US already maintains these principles in their own constitution. Also, even once the US rep at the UN signs a treaty or convention, it can take Congress years to get it through because our legislative process (rightfully so) is very exhausting.

As far as your statement that the US is far behind many European democracies in adhering to the principles of human rights, again, I disagree. I think you are inserting specific economic responsibilities into the UNDHR (like Universal Health Care) that are simply not there, and using that as an example of progress when many people – Americans and Europeans – might disagree that universal health care is a sign of progress in economic fronts and in human rights circles.

With regards to the Catholic church upholding principles of human rights, Catholic charities are extremely well known for work they are doing in other countries to combat poverty. Here in the States, it’s hard to find a large city that doesn’t have a Catholic school or a Catholic hospital. Poverty, health care, and education are all instrumental parts of the UNDHR. Of course other religions do this too, it’s certainly not just Catholics – Lutherans and Jesuits are more active in education, Jewish in health care/hospitals.

I’m certainly not stating that Catholicism is unequivocally the best or most perfect religion – what one person feels as the “best” religion for them will obviously be different than what another feels – but I don’t think some of the judgements and stereotypes people hold about the church are fair.

“A government PROVIDING financially for health care and ensuring ACCESS to health care are two different issues.”

That’s not the way the framers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights see the issue and neither has our government. That’s why we have refused to ratify it. The UNDHR is aimed primarily at governments not the Salvation Army. A right is an entitlement, not charity. The UNDHR is about the government’s responsibility to see to the welfare of its citizenry not just egual opportunity. That’s the difference between the UNDHR and our own Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights does not mention anything about economic rights as contained in Article 25.

But you are right that what constitutes adequate food, shelter, education, health care, etc. is going to vary from place to place. And some countries are not going to fulfill this Article simply because they can’t. I think it is interesting that in the Middle East being able to provide these things is what lends legitimacy to governments. But in order to get finanical assistance from the World Bank those governments are under increasing pressure *not* to provide them. So we are in the interesting position of having the World Bank policies which are in direct contradiction to the UNDHR, yet we criticize Muslim countries for failing to uphold the UNDHR. Much of the attraction of organizations like Hamas and the Lebanese Hizbullah has been in their ability to provide these things.

Jessica wrote:

“When you say that human rights, in order to have any moral force, should be God-given you run into a problem in including all those people who don’t believe in any God.”

True enough, but that strikes me as the instinsic problem of both atheism and secularism. They fail to provide an alternative source for morality.

“A religion embracing the principles of human rights – which I believe that Catholic church does do – is different than a religion stating their support for a document that has other (political and economic) components.”

That is, of course, a central issue. As I said, the UNHDR considers social equity a human right. Classical Liberalism does not. But I’m curious as to what principles of human rights you see the Catholic church upholding and where does it do so?

As for the US record in upholding human rights as articulated in the UNHDR, yes it is far ahead of most countries, even those who claim to adhere to the principles of the UNHDR. But it is far behind most European democracies in doing so.

RE: example of article 25 as US failure to maintain human rights…

A government PROVIDING financially for health care and ensuring ACCESS to health care are two different issues. I do not believe that in reading article 25, the US government should implement universal health care. Article 25 simply states that adequete health care resources need to be available to all people, not that the government should provide for it.

With regards to the food, clothing, and housing issue this is not only a question of what is adequete (are homeless shelters adequete?) but also of who should provide. The UNDHR is not only an affirmation by different governments, but also by individuals as a part of the collective society. Therefore, it places just as much responsibility on us as citizens as it does on governments. The government is only responsbile to the level of providing equal opportunity – to utilize the opportunity is up to the individual.

These questions are the very reasons why the UNDHR was left intentionally vague. There is a great book based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s contributions to the UNDHR (I’m forgetting the name of it at the moment but I can get it if you’re interested) which explains a lot of these decisions.

RE: poltics/church comment….

I completely agree that human rights do have a moral and religious component, but there is also an economic and political component that cannot be ignored. When you say that human rights, in order to have any moral force, should be God-given you run into a problem in including all those people who don’t believe in any God.

A religion embracing the principles of human rights – which I believe that Catholic church does do – is different than a religion stating their support for a document that has other (political and economic) components.

Agreed that the Catholic church should have stood up to Nazi Germany, but that wasn’t the point of my Germany comment. Replace “Germany” in my previous comment with any other democratic country and it still has the same meaning.

I’m by no means saying that the Catholic church is perfect – no religion is “perfect” because it is practiced, ultimately, by sinful people. Same goes true for countries – the US certainly can improve its human rights record in a number of areas, but I still think it is far ahead of many countries in this regard.

Also, I’d like to hear your thoughts on how religious individuals who aren’t part of a church with a head or appointed speaker can express their “support” for the UNDHR.

Thanks for the good debate, it’s certainly making my day more interesting!