Imago Dei, Volume 3, Issue 5

Registration for the third international conference on Human Dignity is now open.

We anticipate this year's conference to be oversubscribed, so to avoid disappointment, please register here

Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, Honorary President of the DHI, has been awarded the prestigious C-FAM Maximilian Kolbe medal for his service as Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations.

The medal honours those who have contributed to the global campaign to defend and promote life, with particular emphasis on work within the United Nations.   

Cardinal Martino (seen here with C-FAM President Austin Ruse and C-FAM Board Member Robert Royal) served as Apostolic Nuncio to the UN for sixteen years. During this time, Cardinal Martino was designated as the Pope's official representative at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo; where Martino forged an international, multi-faith, pro-life/pro-family alliance that succeeded in preventing abortion from being recognised as a fundamental human right worldwide.

Ruse stated: "Our medal honours modern day martyrs who stand against the powerful forces who want to enshrine baby-killing as an international human right, and who want to define the family out of existence.   

"It is no small thing to stand up to the richest and most powerful people and institutions, but Cardinal Martino did just that every day for 16 years."

The DHI was delighted to sponsor the Acton Institute's recent conference in Rome, entitled "Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives from East and West."

Founded in April, 1990, the Acton Institute is named in honour of Baron Acton of Aldenham and was a historian of freedom.  Known as "the magistrate of history," Lord Acton was one of the great personalities of the nineteenth century.  His most notable conclusion is that political liberty is the essential condition and guardian of religious liberty.  He thereby points to the union of faith and liberty, which has been the inspiration for the mission of the Acton Institute.

The mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free, virtuous, and humane society.  This direction recognizes the benefits of a limited government, but also the beneficent consequences of a free market.  It embraces an objective framework of moral values, but also recognizes and appreciates the subjective nature of economic value.  It views justice as a duty of all to give the one his due but, more importantly, as an individual obligation to serve the common good and not just his own needs and wants.

This packed conference, held at Rome's prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University, was the first in the five-part series One and Indivisible? The Relationship Between Religious and Economic Freedom.  The speakers were Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun (Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong), Archbishop Maroun Lahham (Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem for Jordan), Rev. Professor Martin Rhonheimer (Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross) and Dr. Samuel Gregg (Director of Research, Acton Institute).

The DHI maintained an information stand throughout the conference, organised by Radu Motoca, Susanna Nordlinder, O'Niel Minto and Benjamin Harnwell (as seen in photo, left to right).

Persecution of Christians is not limited to the MENA region but can also be found prevalent in Europe.  In their 2013 report The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe documents 241 individual cases of intolerance against European Christians.  

The full report can be accessed here.

Recent Press Releases

The Perennial Newness of the Gospel of Life

DHI 

HE Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino

Honorary President

Patrons

HRH Prince Charles of Bourbon 

Two Sicilies, Duke of Castro

Rocco Buttiglione MP

HMEH Prince and Grand Master 

Fra' Matthew Festing

Field Marshal The Lord Guthrie 

GCB LVO OBE 

HI&RH Otto von Habsburg 

Prof. Nasser D Khalili PhD 

KCSS KCFO

Prof. Hans-Gert Pöttering MEP

HE Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke

President, Advisory Board

Advisory Board

H.E. Cardinal Francis Arinze

H.E. Cardinal Walter Brandmüller

H.E. Cardinal Francesco Monterisi

H.E. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

H.E. Cardinal Edwin O'Brien

H.E. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith

H.E. Cardinal Robert Sarah

H.E. Cardinal Angelo Scola

H.E. Cardinal Elio Sgreccia

H.E. Cardinal Peter Turkson

H.E. Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun

Luca Volontè

Chairman

Fr. Michael Seed, SA, PhD, STD

Chaplain

Fellows

Yoyo Allalouf

H.E. Anthony Bailey OBE 

GCSS KC*HS

John Hughes

John Kennedy CBE KSG 

KCHS KMCO DL

JP Loveland

Dean Slover KSS

International Committee on 

Human Dignity

Nirj Deva DL MEP 

(European Parliament)

President

Ingrid Grosu

Secretary-General 

Members (in chronological order)

Dr. Mantas Adomenas MP 

(Lithuanian Parliament)

Mircea Lubanovici MP 

(Romanian Parliament)

Lord Alton of Liverpool 

(British Parliament)

Endre Spaller MP 

(Hungarian Parliament)

Dott. Antonio Maria Sacco

Sub-Committee: Human Dignity 

and Bioethics

Prof. Patrick Barron

Sub-Committee: Human Dignity 

in the Economic Sphere

Elia Essa Kas Hanna

Sub-Committee: Human Dignity 

and Religious Freedom

Tudor Drambarean

Sub-Committee: Human Dignity 

and the Traditional Family

Theresa Creel

Director of Operations

Leo van Doesburg

Director of Parliamentary Relations

Daniel Howard

Director of External Affairs

Dr. Radu Motoca PhD

Director of Research

Christian Sweeting KCSG

Vice Chairman

Communications Department

O'Niel Minto

Webmaster                     Andrea Sicari

Web Support                    Ena Granulo

Research Secretariat

Daniel Towne

Jonathan de Leyser

Susanna Nordlinder 

Stephanie Zawada 

Consultants

Eunice Dugulescu Vatran

Stephen Jones

Kalman C. Sporn 

(Advisor, Middle East Policy) 

Benjamin Harnwell 

Founder & President of the Board of Trustees

Reflection

"The Institute promotes recognition of the infinite value of every single person by recognising each human life as being made in the Image and Likeness of God, from conception until natural death. The Imago Dei is the source of the sanctity of human life. Promoting Human Dignity protects this sanctity in the political sphere, as the Christian Faith upholds it in the cultural sphere. The Institute exists to draw these themes together." 

Benjamin Harnwell

 
Founder, Dignitatis Humanae Institute

Via delle Fornaci 44, Roma 00165, Italia

Office: +39 06 622 79252     Fax: +39 06 622 79212

email: office@dignitatishumanae.com

Skype: dignitatis_humanae