"John Paul has been hailed as a great champion of human rights, but it would be more correct to say that everything John Paul did was to champion human dignity. Poverty, oppression, persecution and all the evils that afflict humanity are not so much a denial of human rights (which indeed they are), but an affront to the inherent worth and dignity of the human person. John Paul's defence of human dignity from the very first moment of human existence to the moment of natural death was seamless and wholly coherent. He taught with conviction the fundamental truth that human dignity is not determined by what an individual can do but is grounded in the reality of each individual's existence, of being a human being."