Vatican City, Oct 28, 2010 / 15:03 pm
Science in the 21st century must work for the "true good of man," the Pope told a group of scientists Oct. 28. The "positive outcome" of this century largely depends on it.
The Holy Father hosted members of the Pontifical Academy for Science in audience at the Vatican. The group is gathered in Rome for the academy's plenary meeting examining "The Scientific Legacy of the Twentieth Century."
Noting the great advances in science in the last century, he said that the field can be neither categorized in the extreme of being able to answer all questions of man's existence nor as a source of fear from the "sobering developments" it has created such as nuclear weapons.
The task of science, rather, "was and remains a patient yet passionate search for the truth about the cosmos, about nature and about the constitution of the human being," said the Pope.