Vatican backs rights of disabled

National Catholic Reporter, July 4, 2003 by Dennis Coday

UNITED NATIONS -- An effort to develop an international convention on the rights of people with disabilities got Vatican support in a statement June 19. "These persons are rich in humanity," said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, nuncio to the United Nations. "Each has rights and duties like every other human being."

He said disability was "a place where normality and stereotypes are challenged," and where society was moved to see "that crucial point at which the human person is fully himself or herself."

Meeting June 16-27 at U.N. headquarters in New York, the committee found most speakers supportive of the convention proposal. Dzidek Kedzia, speaking for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, put the number of disabled persons worldwide at 600 million, and said U.N. human rights instruments had "not been fully used so far" to support their rights.