On the 10th January 1946, the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations was held at Central Hall, Westminster. Delegates from over 50 nations attended and were addressed by the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee who urged courage in the development of the UN. He said:
“Finally, let us be clear as to what is our ultimate fate. It is not just a negation of war but the creation of a world security and freedom, of a world governed by justice and the moral law: We desire, to assert the pre-eminence of right over might and the general good against selfish sectional aims.”
It has been only too clear, even in the last few days and weeks, that the role of the United Nations is under threat and that those ‘selfish sectional aims’ are on the rise and preeminent for a number of world leaders.
Our late Vice President Bruce Kent was a fierce defender and promoter of the United Nations and would have urged us to do all we can to make our own support clear. At our AGM last year, Oliver McTernan encouraged us to consider how we, as Pax Christi, could better support the United Nations and a rules based approach to international relations – whilst also recognising the need for urgent reform – not least in the membership and working of the Security Council.
One of the actions Bruce Kent took was to repeatedly print and distribute A4 cards setting out the Preamble to the United Nations Charter. Why not order some of those cards and find somewhere they can be displayed. They are available from the Movement for the Abolition of War website here:
At a Service of Thanksgiving to mark the 80th anniversary of that first meeting of the General Assembly, Cardinal Vincent Nichols gave what our Vice President Pat Gaffney called a ‘most powerful and heartfelt’ homily. We’d recommend reading the homily in full which you can find here:
https://rcdow.org.uk/cardinal/homilies/80th-anniversary-of-the-united-nations
