Vatican tells UN rights council that dignity does not fade with cognitive decline

The Holy See told the United Nations Human Rights Council that human dignity does not disappear when a person's cognitive abilities weaken or when they become physically dependent on others.

Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, spoke during the council's 63rd regular session. He said the dignity of the person is a gift from God that cannot be erased, even when cognitive capacities, intellect or awareness weaken or fail. He was speaking in the interactive dialogue with the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons.

Balestrero pointed to a risk identified in earlier reports: when cognitive capacity is reduced, a person "may be increasingly represented by others rather than heard, as if a diminished capacity implied a diminished personality." He warned that this reverses a basic human rights principle and reduces an older person's moral agency to their cognitive function.

Dignity recognized in the Universal Declaration

Citing Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica humanitas, Balestrero said the person is not defined by awareness, intellect or capacities, qualities that "can weaken or even disappear." He said the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the dignity of the person "as the foundation of equal and inalienable rights." That dignity, he said, "does not fade along with" capacities that decline.

That dignity is recognized "above all" within the family and the community, where each person is heard and supported, he said. "When older people with cognitive impairment can live in such environments, they are not seen as a burden to be disposed of, but as valuable members of society," Balestrero said. Dependence and frailty, he added, "neither deny nor obscure this dignity"; instead, "they are a manifestation of the human condition."

Active members able to receive and to give

Balestrero said older people with cognitive impairment "continue to retain and exercise their rights, often through forms of support and relationship." That calls for a response that does not replace their voice, he said. "The response must not be substitution, but dialogue, understanding and support," so that older people remain "active members of society, able both to receive and to contribute."