Pope Francis: address to Pontifical Academy of
Sciences
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the Participants in
the Plenary Session of the Pontifical
Academy of Sciences on Monday.
The Academy’s November 25-29 meeting is focused on ways in
which already available or expected scientific advances may affect the
sustainable development of human societies and their environments.
Please find the full text of the Holy Father’s
prepared remarks in their official English translation, below
******************************
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you on the occasion of your plenary
session and I thank the President, Professor Werner Arber, for his kind
words. I wish to thank you for the contribution you are making
which, with the passing of time, increasingly reveals its usefulness for
scientific progress, for the cause of cooperation between human persons and
especially for the care of the planet on which God has allowed us to
live.
Never before has there been such a clear need for science to
be at the service of a new global ecological equilibrium. At the same
time we are seeing a renewed partnership between the scientific and Christian
communities, who are witnessing the convergence of their distinct approaches to
reality in the shared goal of protecting our common home, threatened as it is
by ecological collapse and consequent increase of poverty and social
exclusion. I am pleased that you perceive so deeply the solidarity which
joins you to the humanity of both today and tomorrow, in a sign of great care
for mother earth. Your commitment is all the more admirable in its
orientation towards the full promotion of integral human development, peace,
justice, dignity and human freedom. Proof of this, in addition to the
accomplishments of the past, is evident in the many topics you seek to examine
in this plenary session; these range from great discoveries in cosmology, to
sources of renewable energy, to food security, and even a passionate seminar on
power and the limits of artificial intelligence.
In the Encyclical Laudato Si’ I stated that
“we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be
what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace,
beauty and fullness” (53). In our modern world, we have grown up thinking
ourselves owners and masters of nature, authorized to plunder it without any
consideration of its hidden potential and laws of development, as if subjecting
inanimate matter to our whims, with the consequence of grave loss to
biodiversity, among other ills. We are not custodians of a museum or of
its major artefacts to be dusted each day, but rather co-operators in
protecting and developing the life and biodiversity of the planet and of human
life present there. An ecological conversion capable of supporting
and promoting sustainable development includes, by its very nature, both the
full assuming of our human responsibilities regarding creation and its
resources, as well as the search for social justice and the overcoming of an
immoral system that produces misery, inequality and exclusion.
Very briefly, I would say that it falls to scientists, who
work free of political, economic or ideological interests, to develop a
cultural model which can face the crisis of climatic change and its social
consequences, so that the vast potential of productivity will not be reserved
only for the few. Just as the scientific community, through
interdisciplinary dialogue, has been able to research and demonstrate our
planet’s crisis, so too today that same community is called to offer a leadership
that provides general and specific solutions for issues which your plenary
meeting will confront: water, renewable forms of energy and food
security. It has now become essential to create, with your cooperation, a
normative system that includes inviolable limits and ensures the protection of
ecosystems, before the new forms of power deriving from the techno-economic
model causes irreversible harm not only to the environment, but also to our
societies, to democracy, to justice and freedom.
Within this general picture, it is worth noting that
international politics has reacted weakly – albeit with some praiseworthy
exceptions – regarding the concrete will to seek the common good and universal
goods, and the ease with which well-founded scientific opinion about the state
of our planet is disregarded. The submission of politics to a technology
and an economy which seek profit above all else, is shown by the “distraction”
or delay in implementing global agreements on the environment, and the
continued wars of domination camouflaged by righteous claims, that inflict ever
greater harm on the environment and the moral and cultural richness of
peoples.
Despite this, we do not lose hope and we endeavour to make
use of the time the Lord grants us. There are also many encouraging signs
of a humanity that wants to respond, to choose the common good, and regenerate
itself with responsibility and solidarity. Combined with moral values,
the plan for sustainable and integral development is well positioned to offer
all scientists, in particular those who profess belief, a powerful impetus for
research.
I extend my best wishes for your work and I invoke upon the
activities of the Academy, upon each of you and your families, abundant divine
blessings. I ask you please to not forget to pray for me. Thank
you.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét