POPE WELCOMES GROUP FROM WORLD INSTITUTE OF PHENOMENOLOGY

VATICAN CITY, MAR 22, 2003 (VIS) - Pope John Paul today welcomed a small delegation from the World Institute of Phenomenology from Hanover, Massachusetts on the occasion of the presentation in Rome of the volume "Phenomenology Worldwide. Foundations - Expanding - Dynamics - Life Engagements. A Guide for Research and Study."

The Pope noted that the volume is "the fruit of the collaboration of over 70 specialists in the various fields of phenomenological research." He said that Edmund Husserl, "the father of phenomenology, hoped in fact that a community of research would be formed to face with diverse yet complementary approaches the great worlds of man and life."

"I thank God," stated John Paul I, "for having allowed me to participate in this fascinating undertaking, starting with my years of study and teaching and even afterwards, in the successive stages of my life and pastoral ministry."

He described phenomenology as "first of all a style of thought, an intellectual relation with reality, whose essential and constitutive traits one hopes to gather, avoiding prejudices and schematisms. I would like to say it is almost an attitude of intellectual charity towards man and the world and, for the believer, towards God, the principle and the end of all things."

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