SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH REQUIRES AN ETHICAL BASE

VATICAN CITY, MAY 25, 2000 (VIS) - At midday today in the Vatican Basilica, the Holy Father received participants in the Jubilee of Scientists, who had earlier taken part in a Mass presided by Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

The Pope, who spoke alternately in French, English, Spanish and Italian, recalled that "scientific research is based on the human spirit's capacity to discover that which is universal. This opening to knowledge is an introduction to the ultimate and fundamental meaning of the human being in the world."

"Faith, for its part, is able to integrate and assimilate every research, for all research, through a deeper understanding of created reality in all its specificity, gives man the possibility of discovering the Creator, source and goal of all things."

John Paul II emphasized that, "if in the past the separation between faith and reason represented a drama for man who experienced the risk of losing his interior unity under the threat of ever more fragmented knowledge, your mission today consists in continuing to carry out research in the conviction that 'for the intelligent man ... all things are harmonized and reconciled'."

Scientific research, he continued, "needs an ethical support as well as judicious openness to a culture that respects the needs of the individual." Addressing those who work in the field of research and development, he said: "In constant scrutiny of the mysteries of the world, leave your spirits open to the horizons that faith opens up before you. ... Thus, be above all passionate searchers of the invisible God who alone can satisfy the deep yearning of your lives, filling you with His grace."

The Pope concluded by underlining that the Jubilee of Scientists represents "an encouragement and a support for all those who sincerely search for the truth. It shows that it is possible to be both exacting researchers in all fields of knowledge and faithful disciples of the Gospel."

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