Vatican City, Oct 30, 2003 / 22:00 pm
In a message sent to the participants of a congress organized by the Pontifical Commission for Historical Sciences to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Pope Leo XIII, Pope John Paul II renewed his wish of bringing to light the truth about the Catholic Church’s history.
“Like Leo XIII, I too am personally convinced that bringing to light the full truth about the 2,000 years of Church history, through science, benefits her,” the Holy Father writes in the message.
“Historians are asked not only to scrupulously apply all the instruments of historic methodology, but they are also asked to pay conscious attention to the scientific ethic that must always distinguish their research.”
Therefore, they cannot “be accusers or judges of the past, but they must attempt to patiently understand each event with the maximum depth and amplitude, in order to delineate a historic context as close as possible to the truth of the facts.”