POPE ADDRESSES COLLOQUIUM ON FRENCH PHILOSOPHER BLONDEL

VATICAN CITY, NOV 18, 2000 (VIS) - The Holy Father this morning welcomed 50 participants in the international colloquium organized by the Gregorian University in Rome on the French philosopher Maurice Blondel and entitled "Blondel between 'L'Action' and Trilogy."

"At the root of Maurice Blondel's philosophy," said the Pope, "is the acute perception of the drama of the separation between faith and reason and his intrepid will to overcome this separation contrary to the nature of things. The philosopher from Aix is thus an eminent representative of Christian philosophy, understood as rational speculation, in vital union with faith, in a double fidelity to the exigencies of intellectual research and of the Magisterium."

The Holy Father recalled the words he wrote in a Message in 1993 on the centenary of Blondel's "L'Action": "It is (Blondel's) courage as a thinker, linked to a fidelity and unfailing love of the Church, that current philosophers and theologians who study Blondel's works can learn from this great master."

"May all those engaged in intellectual research," he said in closing, "courageously accept, as Blondel did, knowing the limits of all human thought and allow themselves to be led to the threshold of divine mystery, which is given to us through faith!"

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