Conference on Science and Faith inaugurated at the Vatican

Vatican City, Jun 2, 2004 / 22:00 pm

This morning Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, inaugurated an interdisciplinary conference on science and faith. It will be organized jointly by the same council and the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art.

The theme of the meeting, which will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia on June 3-6, is “Ethical Responsibility in the World.” 

The meeting will be divided into four sections: science, faith and society, which analyzes the role that science and faith exercise in social life; science and values, the value of science, which considers the ethical implications of scientific research especially in the biomedical field; the connection between knowledge and ethics and the interdisciplinary character and the new horizons of activity.

In his inaugural speech today, Cardinal Poupard described the changes that have taken place in the last twenty years, especially in Europe, saying that science has played an important role.   

Reclaiming the ethical dimension of science is fundamental, he stated.  It is necessary to present an alliance between science and conscience to those who propose that science has no connection to ethical values.

The event takes place twenty years after another conference organized by the Slovenian Academy of Science in Ljubljana which was then known as the Secretariat for non-believers.