To the Polish Episcopate's Council for Science (5 June 1979)

On 5 June 1979, the Holy Father spoke, in Czestochowa, to the Polish Episcopate's Council for Science, highlighting the need for Council's participation in “the important processes of contemporary science.”

It is with great joy that I meet the Polish Episcopate's venerable Council for Science of which, until a short time ago, by reason of the will of the Conference of the same Episcopate, I was the chairman. Today I cordially greet my successor, Bishop Marian Rechowicz, all the dear priests and professors.

I wish to tell you that I now give the same importance as before to the Episcopate's Council for Science. Perhaps, indeed, after the promulgation of the new Apostolic Constitution Sapientia Christiana on university studies, I see more clearly the relevance of our Council for Science and appreciate with greater understanding its function and responsibility.

The Church—particularly in our time—must face this responsibility. It must first of all decide knowledgeably about the problems of its own science at the academic level. It must likewise, with great awareness, participate in the important processes of contemporary science that are linked to the activities of the universities and the various institutes, especially its own universities and its own Catholic institutes.

The Episcopate's Council for Science, which comprises the representatives of all the Catholic Athenaea of an academic character in Poland, must precisely in this field be useful to the Episcopate and to the Church in our motherland. I do not exaggerate if I say that upon it falls in great part the responsibility for Christian Polish culture today and tomorrow.

And taking account therefore of all this, I recommend the future activities of all of you, Bishops and Professors, to Mary, Seat of Divine Wisdom, and with all my heart I bless you.

© Copyright 1979 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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