The pope's "maze of theological justifications" are "simply designed to reach the conclusion the Vatican wants: that Church doctrine, not human rights is the final arbiter — for everyone"

Vatican Smokescreen on Human Rights

(Excerpts)  The Vatican tries to quietly elevate Chuch doctrine above human rights. It has not signed some human rights treaties and in some others has made “reservations” which keep it from having to comply. This strategy gives the Church leverage, prevents it from being held accountable for priestly abuse, and protects its courts from charges that they violate the right to a fair trial.

In his Caritas in Veritate Benedict XVI cautions against “alleged rights, arbitrary and non-essential in nature”.  The rationale is that human rights are arbitrary because they don't come from God, whose spokesman happens to be the pope. And Benedict goes on to say that duties are needed to “set a limit on rights”. This enables him, in a roundabout way, to attack the basic idea of human rights, which is that they're unconditional. His assault becomes even more indirect when he tries to replace “human rights” with something called “natural rights”. These are held to derive from something else called “natural law” which just happens to conform to Church doctrine. This can be managed because “natural law is abstract and vague to the point of making its application to concrete cases extremely difficult. It requires an authoritative interpreter, the Church.”  

“Human rights language is being co-opted by those with an anti-human rights agenda, among governments but also armed groups and even within civil society.” — Claudio Cordone, Secretary General, Amnesty International, 2010

♦ Vatican attack on human rights dressed up as need to counterbalance rights with duties

To undercut human rights without engaging in a potentially damaging frontal attack, the Vatican attempts to turn back the clock. It tries to return to the Middle Ages before the advent of human rights when Church taught that people had duties, but no unconditonal rights. Humans were owned by God and had duties to their Creator. This kept people humble: the idea of human rights didn't yet exist.

Pope is using the smokescreen of theology to mask his attack on human rights. People get lost in this maze of theological justifications, concentrating on them, rather than on the fact that they're simply designed to reach the conclusion the Vatican wants: that Church doctrine, not human rights is the final arbiter — for everyone.

♦ One human right, religious freedom, used against others and made absolute

“Guided by the principles of the international law, especially by those which concern the observance of the human rights and fundamental freedoms...” So says the unratified Czech concordat — but what is the reality?
Of the UN's nine core international human rights treaties, the Vatican has only signed two, and even one of those with reservations. Nor has it signed the EU's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

In the last few years the Vatican has used various legal means in an ominous new way which threatens to to undermine human rights. This is done by twisting the right to freedom of conscience so as to limit it to those who conform precisely to Vatican doctrine. First, “conscience” is quietly defined as Church doctrine, thus ignoring the consciences “conscience concordat”.)  And second, the Vatican then tries to make this particular “conscience” into an absolute which allows (and if they work in Catholic institutions, effectively forces) professionals and public servants to trample on the human rights of others.

To implement this, on 28 January 2002, Pope John Paul II effectively said that Roman Catholic lawyers and judges everywhere should refuse divorce cases.  Another attempt, this time at the national level, was the draft “Conscience concordat” prepared for Slovakia in 2004. Sheltering under the category for international human rights treaties, this identification of “conscience” with the dictates of Church dogma would have taken legal precedence over Slovak domestic legislation.  And a still more audacious move in this direction is the current effort, spelled out in February 2007, to “complete” i.e., “rewrite” the Declaration of Human Rights to suit the Vatican:

We are also hoping for legislation that will complete Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948 by the United Nations to guarantee the right to conscientious objection and to defend this right against all forms of discrimination [!] in the areas of work, education and the attribution of benefits by governments.

Note how the Vatican claims that it is “discrimination” to oblige it to stop discriminating against others.  Concordat Watch