To the European Center for Nuclear Research
ShareOn Tuesday, 15 June 1982, the Holy Father visited the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). in his address, the Pope reminded them that, if there was a time when certain scientists locked themselves into an attitude called “scientism,” “most scientists admit that the natural sciences, with their method based on experiences and the reproduction of results, only cover a part of reality, or rather reach it from a certain aspect. Philosophy, art, religion, and above all religion that is aware of being connected to a transcendent revelation, perceive other aspects of the reality of the universe and above all of man.”
Mr. General Director,
Ladies,
Gentlemen,
and dear friends.
1. I feel honored to visit you today. And I express to you all my gratitude for your invitation and your welcome to this Center of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Yes, I am very happy to meet you and your families.
The prodigious things you have shown and explained to me make me understand better the essential function of CERN, already for almost thirty years: that of making available to scientists - I think there are more than two thousand, coming from 140 universities or national laboratories - of particle physics research facilities that could not be achieved using each country's national resources alone. Thus CERN is the main European center for fundamental research on the composition of matter, and in this field it finds its place among the largest centers in the world.
2. What characterizes you first of all is that you are researchers. What brings you together, researchers and technicians, is your expertise at the service of a totally disinterested cause: pure research , with the sole aim of advancing scientific knowledge. You do this thanks to the high-quality tools that are at your entire disposal, especially particle accelerators and intersection storage rings; but what guides you is the passion of discovery.
3. You pursue this noble ideal of scientific research in common. Today, in a field that requires many tools, many skills and a large amount of computer data, it could not be otherwise. We can no longer imagine isolated researchers. But I think I can underline the broad participation, the collaborative attitude, the spirit of openness which particularly underline the working atmosphere of CERN and which greatly honors it. The location of your laboratory also symbolically straddles French and Swiss territory. You come from twelve member states who generously support this prestigious undertaking, but you also accept other scientists from the West or the East, belonging to countries committed to very different policies. Regardless of political interests or personal ambitions, you work together as a team, united in the same pursuit, and that is what allows you to establish communications on a truly global level. Yes, here one of the most beautiful aspects of science is truly realized: that of uniting men.
4. But I will dwell a little on what forms the specificity of your research: it explores ever more deeply the intimate structure of matter , therefore, what can be called "the infinitely small", to the limit of what is measurable in microcosm, atoms, electrons, nucleus, protons, neutrons, quarks. . . In short, it is the secrets of matter, its composition and its fundamental energy that you try to decipher. For this reason, all scientific circles, but also the entire cultural world that loves to reflect on such problems and, one can say, all men, are interested or at least solicited, because part of their mystery is revealed.
5. I say “a part ”. Because faced with the immensity and complexity of things yet to be discovered in this field, you are, as true scientists, filled with humility. Are there elementary and indivisible components of matter? What are the forces acting between them? It's as if these questions recede as you advance.
And above all, other questions arise that are even more fundamental for knowledge, but which are at the limits of the "exact sciences", of the natural sciences, or rather already beyond, in the philosophical field. Your science also allows us to better ask philosophers and believers: what is the origin of the cosmos? And why do we find order in nature?
If there was a time in which certain scientists were tempted to lock themselves into an attitude steeped in "scientism" - which was more a philosophical choice than a scientific attitude, wanting to ignore other forms of knowledge -, this time is over. Most scientists admit that the natural sciences, with their method based on experiences and the reproduction of results, only cover a part of reality, or rather reach it from a certain aspect. Philosophy, art, religion, and above all religion that is aware of being connected to a transcendent revelation, perceive other aspects of the reality of the universe and above all of man. Pascal already spoke, in another sense it is true, of three orders of magnitude in man, the magnitudes of power, the magnitudes of intelligence and the magnitudes of love, each of them infinitely surpassing the other and moreover calling this Other than the Creator, Father of all men, as their source and their end, because "man infinitely surpasses man".
6. On the other hand, you too highlight the greatness and mystery of this man . The greatness of his investigative power, of his reason, of his ability to reach a greater truth, the power of his will in the generous pursuit of a long selfless path. The mystery of him too, and, perhaps, the abysmal novelty of pure research on the nature of matter is ultimately less important than the exciting novelty of the attitude of the man who feels completely small in the face of these discoveries. Yes, what a change in the scientific representation of the world, as we inherited it from our fathers, as they had received it from the generations who had preceded them in the great community of men! But, at the same time, allow the believer that I am to say it in all simplicity, as continuity in the plan of the creator God, who made man "in his image and likeness", entrusting him with the mission of "dominating" all world that he had created out of love, and of which the author of the first book of the Bible, " Genesis ", never ceases to repeat with wonder: "God saw that it was good, God saw everything he had made, and behold that this was very good" ( Gen 1, 31).
7. You yourselves , physicists, must here deploy your energies and your expertise with only the scientific methods of the natural sciences. But as men , you cannot help but ask yourself those other fundamental, existential questions I was talking about, which are answered by philosophical wisdom and faith. I wish you to also be men of research in this field, since you know that there could be no opposition between these fields but rather a harmony, that of being men open to the fullness of truth. Furthermore, I know that personally a certain number of you are believers and share, for example, the convictions of the Christian faith , without this resulting in any disturbance in the rigor of your scientific work, nor in the mutual respect that you must show among yourselves. I would say more, doesn't the fundamental structure of matter reveal to everyone a logical order that seems much closer to a transcendent philosophical interpretation of natural phenomena than that of a purely materialist conception?
To Christians I say, as I affirmed to the students and professors of the Catholic Institute of Paris: May you "existentially unify, in your intellectual work, two levels of reality that there is too often a tendency to oppose, as if they were antithetical, that is the search for truth and the certainty of already knowing the source of truth” (John Paul II, Allocutio ad Institutum Catholicum in urbe Paris habita , 4, die 1 June 1980 : Teachings of John Paul II , III, 1 [1980] 1581 ).
8. The Church maintains well the specific distinction between scientific and religious knowledge and their methods. She is also sure of their complementarity and their profound harmony around the same God, creator and redeemer of man. It wants to dispel any misunderstanding in this regard. She respects, in her order, the science of nature which, for her, is not a threat but rather the manifestation of the creator God. You are happy with your progress and therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, encourage your research done in the spirit we have explained to you.
He also admits that today's scientific culture asks Christians for a maturation of their faith, an openness to the language and questions of scientists, a sense of the levels of knowledge and the different approaches to the truth. In short, it wants the dialogue between science and faith, even if it has historically experienced tensions, to enter an increasingly positive phase and intensify at every level.
The love of truth, sought with humility, is one of the great values capable of bringing together men today across various cultures . Scientific culture is opposed neither to humanistic culture nor to mystical culture. Every authentic culture is openness towards the essential , and there is no truth that cannot become universal.
For this reason, I recently wanted to create a "Pontifical Council for Culture" in Rome, well aware of this fundamental reality that unites all men, and I explicitly wanted this Council to be open to all researchers and research centers. This tells you how much I rejoice at CERN's openness to all those who want to participate in its research even if these researchers are not an integral part of its structure. True research, like culture, brings together communities of men, beyond borders and diversities of all kinds.
9. I said it at the beginning: you dedicate yourselves to pure research. Precisely in this place, technicians are at the service of science. And I only placed myself on the terrain of cultural investigation.
However, finally, allow me to evoke the possible applications of your research , even if they go beyond your work, your responsibilities and the purpose of this Center. Because history shows us that the discovery of new phenomena leads, over time, to prodigious applications, often completely unexpected. Yes, certainly, in your countries, the governments and technicians of your countries follow your research with an interest that is so much greater that they expect its intense use in the short or long term. And what use cannot be foreseen starting from the structure of the atom and its possible disintegration?
Men will be able to make the best or the worst of it. The best for the service of man and his development, in applications that may concern his health, his food resources, his energy sources, the protection of nature; and the worst, which would be the destruction of the ecological balance, dangerous radioactivity, and, above all, the weapons of destruction which are already terribly dangerous due to their power and number.
I said it to UNESCO on 2 June 1980, I repeated it in front of the scientists of the United Nations University in Hiroshima on 25 February 1981: we are faced with a great moral challenge which consists in harmonizing the values of the technology born from science with the values of conscience. “We need to mobilize consciences!”. The cause of man will be served if science joins consciousness. In other words, it will be necessary to control with the utmost care the way in which man will use these discoveries, and the intent that will define his choices.
The Church has spoken enough about the danger of atomic weapons and I myself have taken enough initiatives in this sense, for me to refrain from insisting here. But, also for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, as I reminded the members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 14 November 1980, the Church hopes, with many men of good will, that all the consequences will be carefully studied - concerning for example the radioactive impact, genetics, environmental pollution, waste storage -, that the guarantees are taken with rigor and that the information is adequate for these problems. The Holy See has a Permanent Representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, in order to express its interest in the peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy.
For you, this is not your direct responsibility. However, you see better than others what is at stake and, consequently, it is your particular responsibility to promote information in these fields, especially among the various people responsible for technical application and to insist that the results of science, however much they are wonderful, never turn against man at the level of technology and are used only for the good of humanity by people inspired by the greatest love for man.
10. In conclusion, I entrust you with my best wishes. I hope that the scientist, at the level of his culture, preserves the sense of the transcendence of man over the world, and also of God over man, and that at the level of his action, he adds to the universal sense of the culture that characterizes him, the sense universal brotherly love of which Christ in a particular way gave the world a taste. In this regard, I repeat my appeal from UNESCO: “Yes, the future of man depends on culture! Yes, world peace depends on the primacy of the Spirit! Yes, the peaceful future of humanity depends on love!” (John Paul II, Allocutio ad UNESCO habita , 23, die 2 June 1980 : Teachings of John Paul II , III, 1 [1980] 1655).
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