Apostolic Voyage to France, Address by Pope to French Institute
Mr Chrancellor, Dear Permanent Secretaries of the five Académies, Dear
Cardinals, Dear brothers in the episcopate and the priesthood, Dear friends
from the Académies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
For me it is a very great
honour to be received this morning under the Cupola. I thank you for the overwhelming
expressions of kindness with which you have welcomed me, and for your gift of the
medal. I could not come to Paris without greeting you personally. I am pleased to
have this happy opportunity to emphasize my profound links with French culture, for
which I have the greatest admiration. In my intellectual journey, contact with French
culture has been particularly important. I therefore avail myself of this occasion
to express my gratitude to it, both personally and as the successor of Peter. The
plaque that we have just unveiled will preserve the memory of our meeting. As Rabelais
rightly asserted in his day, “Science without conscience brings only ruin to the soul!”
(Pantagruel, 8). It was doubtless in order to contribute to avoiding the risk of
such a dichotomy that, at the end of January of last year, and for the first time
in three and a half centuries, two Académies of the Institut, two Pontifical
Academies and the Institut Catholique in Paris organized a joint Colloquium
on the changing identity of the individual. The Colloquium has illustrated the interest
generated by broad interdisciplinary studies. This initiative could be taken further,
in order to explore together the countless research possibilities in the human and
experimental sciences. This wish is accompanied by my prayers to the Lord for you,
for your loved ones and for all the members of the Académies, as well as all
the staff of the Institut de France. May God bless you!