Address to UNESCO (2 June 1980)
ShareOn Monday, 2 June 1980, the Holy Father addressed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)* in Paris, France, emphasizing the principle that “respect for the inalienable rights of the human person is the basis of everything.”
Mr. President of the General Conference,
Mr. Chairman of the Executive Board,
Mr. Director-General,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. I wish first of all to express my very cordial thanks for the invitation that Mr. Amadou Mahtar-M'Bow, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, addressed to me several times, and already from the first of the visits he did me the honor to pay. There are many reasons why I am happy to be able to respond today to this invitation, which I immediately highly appreciated.
For the kind words of welcome they have just spoken to me, I thank Mr Napoléon Leblanc, President of the General Conference, Mr Chams Eldine ElWakil, President of the Executive Board, and Mr Amadou Mahtar-M'Bow, Director General of the Organization. I also want to greet all those gathered here for the 109th session of the Executive Board of UNESCO. I cannot hide my joy at seeing so many delegates from nations around the world gathered together on this occasion, so many eminent personalities, so many skills, so many illustrious representatives of the world of culture and science.
Through my speech, I will try to add my modest stone to the edifice that you are building with diligence and perseverance, Ladies and Gentlemen, through your reflections and your resolutions in all the fields which fall within the competence of UNESCO.
2. Allow me to begin by relating myself to the origins of your Organization. The events that marked the founding of UNESCO inspire me with joy and gratitude to Providence: the signing of its constitution on 16 November 1945; the entry into force of this constitution and the establishment of the Organization on November 4, 1946; the agreement between UNESCO and the United Nations approved by the UN General Assembly in the same year. Your Organization is in fact the work of Nations which, after the end of the terrible Second World War, were driven by what might be called a spontaneous desire for peace, union and reconciliation. These Nations sought the means and the forms of a collaboration capable of establishing, deepening and ensuring in a lasting way this new understanding.
UNESCO was therefore born, like the United Nations, because the peoples knew that at the base of the great undertakings intended to serve the peace and progress of humanity throughout the globe, there was the need for the union of nations , mutual respect, and international cooperation.
3. Continuing the action, thought and message of my great predecessor Pope Paul VI, I had the honor of addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations last October at the invitation from Mr. Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations. Shortly after, on November 12, 1979, I was invited by Mr. Edouard Saouma, Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. In these circumstances, it has been given to me to deal with questions deeply linked to all the problems relating to the peaceful future of man on earth. Indeed, all these problems are intimately linked. We find ourselves in the presence, so to speak, of a vast system of communicating vessels: the problems of culture, science and education do not arise, in the life of nations and in international relations, independently of other problems of human existence, such as those of peace or hunger. The problems of culture are conditioned by the other dimensions of human existence, just as these in turn condition them.
4. There is nevertheless ― and I underlined this in my speech to the UN by referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ― a fundamental dimension, which is capable of upsetting the very foundations of the systems which structure the whole of humanity and to liberate human existence, individual and collective, from the threats that hang over it. This fundamental dimension is man, man in his entirety, man who lives at the same time in the sphere of material values and in that of spiritual values. Respect for the inalienable rights of the human person is the basis of everything [ 1 ].
Any threat to human rights, whether in the context of his spiritual goods or in that of his material goods, does violence to this fundamental dimension. This is why, in my speech to the FAO, I underlined that no man, no country or no system in the world can remain indifferent to the "geography of hunger" and the gigantic threats that will follow if the entire orientation of economic policy, and in particular the hierarchy of investments, do not change in any essential and radical way. This is also why I insist, referring to the origins of your Organization, on the need to mobilize all the forces which orient the spiritual dimension of human existence, which testify to the primacy of the spiritual in man - to this which corresponds to the dignity of his intelligence,
5. At the origin of UNESCO, as also at the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are therefore these first noble impulses of human conscience, intelligence and will. I appeal to this origin, this beginning, these premises and these first principles. It is in their name that I come today to Paris, to the headquarters of your Organization, with a prayer: that at the end of a stage of more than thirty years of your activities, you want to unite even more around those ideals and principles that were found in the beginning. It is also on their behalf that I would now take the liberty of proposing to you some truly fundamental considerations, for it is only in their light that the significance of this institution which bears the name UNESCO shines fully,
6. Genus humanum arte et ratione vivit [ 2]. These words of one of the greatest geniuses of Christianity, who was at the same time a fertile continuator of ancient thought, go beyond the circle and the contemporary significance of Western culture, whether Mediterranean or Atlantic. They have a meaning that applies to the whole of humanity where the various traditions that constitute its spiritual heritage and the various periods of its culture meet. The essential significance of culture consists, according to these words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the fact that it is a characteristic of human life as such. Man lives a truly human life through culture. Human life is culture in the sense that man distinguishes himself and differentiates himself through it from all that exists elsewhere in the visible world:
Culture is a specific mode of "existing" and "being" of man. Man always lives according to a culture which is his own, and which, in turn, creates between men a bond which is also his own, by determining the inter-human and social character of human existence. In the unity of culture as the proper mode of human existence, is rooted at the same time the plurality of cultures within which man lives. In this plurality, man develops without, however, losing the essential contact with the unity of culture as a fundamental and essential dimension of his existence and his being.
7. Man who, in the visible world, is the only ontic subject of culture, is also its only object and its term. Culture is that by which man as man becomes more man, “is” more, has more access to “being”. This is also where the capital distinction between what man is and what he has, between being and having, is founded. Culture is always situated in an essential and necessary relationship to what man is, while its relationship to what he has, to his "having", is not only secondary, but entirely relative.
All of man's 'having' is important for culture, is only a creative factor of culture, insofar as man, through his 'having', can at the same time time “to be more fully as man, to become more fully man in all the dimensions of his existence, in all that characterizes his humanity. The experience of various epochs, without excluding the present epoch, demonstrates that we think of culture and that we speak of it first in relation to the nature of man, then only in a secondary and indirect way in relationship with the world of its products.
This does not detract from the fact that we judge the phenomenon of culture from what man produces, or that we at the same time draw conclusions about man. Such an approach ― typical mode of the “a posteriori” knowledge process ― contains in itself the possibility of going back, in the opposite direction, towards ontico-causal dependencies. Man, and man alone, is the "actor" or "artisan" of culture; man, and man alone, expresses himself in it and finds his own balance in it.
The Integral Man, Subject of Culture
8. All of us present here meet in the field of culture, a fundamental reality which unites us and which is the basis of the establishment and purposes of UNESCO. We meet by this very fact around man and, in a certain sense, in him, in man. This man, who expresses and objectifies himself in and through culture, is unique, complete and indivisible. He is both subject and maker of culture. It cannot therefore be considered solely as the result of all the concrete conditions of its existence, as the result ―to cite just one example - of the relations of production which prevail at a given time. Wouldn't this criterion of relations of production then be in any way a key to understanding the historicity of man, to understanding his culture and the multiple forms of his development?
Admittedly, this criterion is indeed a key, and even a precious key, but it is not the fundamental, constitutive key. Human cultures undoubtedly reflect diverse systems of production relations; however, it is not this or that system that is at the origin of culture, but it is man, the man who lives in the system, who accepts it or who seeks to change it. One cannot think of a culture without human subjectivity and without human causality; but in the cultural domain, man is always the primary fact: man is the primordial and fundamental fact of culture.
And that, man always is: in the integral whole of his spiritual and material subjectivity.
If the distinction between spiritual culture and material culture is correct according to the character and the content of the products in which culture manifests itself, it must be noted at the same time that, on the one hand, the works of material culture always reveal a "spiritualization" of matter, a submission of the material element to the spiritual forces of man, that is to say to his intelligence and his will, ― and that, on the other hand, the works of spiritual culture manifest, in a specific way, a "materialization" of the spirit, an embodiment of what is spiritual.
In cultural works, this double characteristic seems to be equally primordial and equally permanent.
Here then, by way of a theoretical conclusion, is a sufficient basis for understanding culture through the integral man, through the whole reality of his subjectivity. Here is also ― in the domain of action ― the sufficient basis to always seek in culture the integral man, the whole man, in all the truth of his spiritual and bodily subjectivity; the basis which is sufficient not to superimpose on culture - an authentically human system, a splendid synthesis of mind and body - preconceived divisions and oppositions. Indeed, whether it is a question of an absolutization of matter in the structure of the human subject, or, conversely, of an absolutization of the spirit in this same structure, neither one nor the other express the truth of man and only serve his culture.
9. I would like to dwell here on another essential consideration, on a reality of a very different order. We can approach it by noting the fact that the Holy See is represented at UNESCO by its permanent Observer, whose presence is situated in the perspective of the very nature of the Apostolic See. This presence is. in an even broader way, in harmony with the nature and mission of the Catholic Church and, indirectly, with that of all of Christianity. I take this opportunity today to express a deep personal conviction.
The presence of the Apostolic See in your Organization ― although also motivated by the specific sovereignty of the Holy See ― finds, above all, its raison d'être in the organic and constitutive link which exists between religion in general and the Christianity in particular, on the one hand, and culture, on the other. This relationship extends to multiple realities that must be defined as concrete expressions of culture at different times in history and in all parts of the globe. It will certainly not be an exaggeration to affirm in particular that, through a multitude of facts, the whole of Europe ― from the Atlantic to the Urals ― testifies, in the history of each nation as in that of the community whole, of the link between culture and Christianity.
By recalling this, I do not want in any way to diminish the heritage of other continents, nor the specificity and the value of this same heritage which derives from other sources of religious, humanist and ethical inspiration. Moreover, to all the cultures of the whole human family, from the most ancient to those which are contemporary to us, I wish to pay the most profound and sincere homage. It is while thinking of all cultures that I want to say aloud here, in Paris, at UNESCO headquarters, with respect and admiration: “Here is the man! ". I want to proclaim my admiration for the creative richness of the human spirit, for its incessant efforts to know and to strengthen the identity of man: of this man who is always present in all particular forms of culture.
10. In speaking, on the contrary, of the place of the Church and of the Apostolic See in your Organization, I am not thinking only of all the works of culture in which, over the last two millennia, man has expressed himself which had accepted Christ and the Gospel, nor to institutions of different kinds which have arisen from the same inspiration in the fields of education, instruction, benevolence, social assistance and as others. I am thinking above all, Ladies and Gentlemen, of the fundamental link of the Gospel, that is to say of the message of Christ and of the Church, with man in his very humanity. This link is indeed creator of culture in its very foundation. To create culture, it is necessary to consider, until its last consequences and integrally, the man like a particular and autonomous value, as the subject bearing the transcendence of the person. Man must be affirmed for himself, and not for any other motive or reason: only for himself! Much more, one must love man because he is man, one must claim love for man because of the particular dignity he possesses. The set of affirmations concerning man belongs to the very substance of the message of Christ and of the mission of the Church, despite all that critical minds have been able to declare on the matter, and all that the various currents opposed to religion in general and Christianity in particular. we must claim love for man because of the particular dignity he possesses. The set of affirmations concerning man belongs to the very substance of the message of Christ and of the mission of the Church, despite all that critical minds have been able to declare on the matter, and all that the various currents opposed to religion in general and Christianity in particular. we must claim love for man because of the particular dignity he possesses. The set of affirmations concerning man belongs to the very substance of the message of Christ and of the mission of the Church, despite all that critical minds have been able to declare on the matter, and all that the various currents opposed to religion in general and Christianity in particular.
In the course of history, we have already been more than once, and we are still, the witnesses of a process, of a very significant phenomenon. Where religious institutions have been suppressed, where ideas and works born of religious inspiration, and in particular of Christian inspiration, have been deprived of their right of citizenship, men again find these same data outside institutional paths, through the confrontation that takes place, in truth and interior effort, between what constitutes their humanity and what is contained in the Christian message.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will forgive me for this assertion. By proposing it, I meant to offend absolutely no one. Please understand that, in the name of what I am, I could not abstain from giving this testimony. It also carries within it this truth ― which cannot be passed over in silence ― about culture, if we seek in it all that is human, that in which man expresses himself or by which he wants to be the subject of its existence. And in speaking, I wanted at the same time to express all the more my gratitude for the bonds which unite UNESCO to the Apostolic See, these bonds of which my presence today wishes to be a particular expression.
11. From all this, a number of key conclusions emerge. In fact, the considerations I have just made clearly show that the first and essential task of culture in general, and also of all culture, is education. Education in fact consists in man always becoming more man, so that he can "be" more and not only that he can "have" more, and that consequently, through all that he " a", all that he "possesses", he knows more and more fully how to "be" man. For this, man must know how to “be more”, not only “with others”, but also “for others”.
Education is of fundamental importance for the formation of inter-human and social relationships. Here, too, I am touching on a set of axioms on the ground of which the traditions of Christianity derived from the Gospel meet the educational experience of so many well-disposed and profoundly wise men, so numerous throughout the centuries of history. . Nor are they lacking in our time, those men who prove to be great, simply by their humanity which they know how to share with others, in particular with young people.
At the same time, the symptoms of the crises of all kinds to which the milieus and societies that are otherwise the best endowed succumb ― crises which above all affect the young generations ― testify to the environment that the work of educating man does not is not accomplished only with the help of institutions, with the help of organized and material means, however excellent they may be. They also show that what is most important is always the man, the man and his moral authority which comes from the truth of his principles and from the conformity of his actions with these principles.
12. As the most competent world organization in all cultural problems, UNESCO cannot neglect this other absolutely primordial question: what can be done to ensure that the education of man takes place above all in the family? ?
What is the state of public morality which will assure the family, and especially the parents, the moral authority necessary for this purpose? What type of instruction? What forms of legislation support this authority or, on the contrary, weaken or destroy it? The causes of success and failure in the formation of man by his family are always situated both within the very interior of the fundamental creative environment of culture, which is the family, and also at a higher level, that the competence of the State and its organs, on which they remain dependent. These problems cannot fail to provoke reflection and concern in the forum where the qualified representatives of the States meet.
There is no doubt that the first and fundamental cultural fact is the spiritually mature man, that is to say the fully educated man, the man capable of educating himself and educating others. There is also no doubt that the first and fundamental dimension of culture is sound morality: moral culture.
13. Admittedly, there are many specific questions in this area, but experience shows that everything is connected, and that these questions are situated in obvious systems of reciprocal dependence. For example, in the whole process of education, school education in particular, has there not been a unilateral shift towards instruction in the narrow sense of the word?
If we consider the proportions assumed by this phenomenon, as well as the systematic increase in education which refers solely to what man possesses, is it not man himself who finds himself increasingly obscured? This then leads to a real alienation from education: instead of working in favor of what man should "be", it works only in favor of what man can avail himself of in the field of to have”, of “possession”.
The subsequent stage of this alienation is to accustom man, by depriving him of his own subjectivity, to being the object of multiple manipulations: the ideological or political manipulations that are done through public opinion; those that operate through monopoly or control, by economic forces or political powers, of the means of social communication; manipulation, finally, which consists in teaching life as a specific manipulation of oneself.
The apparent imperatives of our society
It seems that such dangers in the field of education mainly threaten societies with a more developed technical civilisation. These societies are faced with the specific crisis of man, which consists of a growing lack of confidence in one's own humanity, in the meaning of being a man, and in the affirmation and joy that come with it. derive and which are a source of creation.
Contemporary civilization attempts to impose on man a series of apparent imperatives, which its spokespersons justify by recourse to the principle of development and progress. Thus, for example, in place of respect for life, the "imperative" to get rid of life and destroy it; in place of love, which is the responsible communion of persons, the "imperative" of maximum sexual enjoyment without any sense of responsibility; instead of the primacy of truth in actions, the “primacy” of fashionable behavior, the subjective, and immediate success.
In all this there is indirectly expressed a great systematic renunciation of the healthy ambition which is the ambition to be a man. Let us have no illusions: the system formed on the basis of these false imperatives, of these fundamental renunciations, can determine the future of man and the future of culture.
14. If, in the name of the future of culture, we must proclaim that man has the right to "be" more, and if for the same reason we must demand a healthy primacy of the family as a whole of the work of the education of man to a true humanity, it is also necessary to situate in the same line the right of the Nation; it too must be placed at the base of culture and education.
The Nation is indeed the great community of men who are united by various ties, but above all, precisely, by culture. The Nation exists “by” culture and “for” culture, and it is therefore the great educator of men so that they can “be more” in the community.
It is this community that has a history that goes beyond the history of the individual and the family.
It is also in this community, according to which every family educates, that the family begins its work of education with what is simplest, the language, thus allowing the man who is at his beginnings to learn to speak to become a member of the community that is his family and his Nation. In all that I proclaim now and that I will develop still more, my words convey a particular experience, a particular testimony of its kind.
I am the son of a Nation that has lived through the greatest experiences in history, that its neighbors have repeatedly condemned to death, but which survived and which remained itself. It has retained its identity, and it has retained, despite partitions and foreign occupations, its national sovereignty, not by relying on the resources of physical force, but solely by relying on its culture. This culture has shown itself to be more powerful than all other forces.
What I am saying here concerning the right of the Nation to the foundation of its culture and its future is therefore not the echo of any "nationalism", but it is always a question of a stable element of human experience. and humanistic perspectives of human development. There is a fundamental sovereignty of society which manifests itself in the culture of the Nation. It is about the sovereignty by which, at the same time, man is supremely sovereign. And when I speak in this way, I also think, with deep inner emotion, of the cultures of so many ancient peoples who did not give in when they found themselves confronted by the civilizations of the invaders: and they still remain for the man the source of his "being" as a man in the inner truth of his humanity.
I also think with admiration of the cultures of new societies, of those which awaken to life in the community of their own Nation, ― just as my Nation awakened to life ten centuries ago ― and which struggle to maintain their own identity and values against the influences and pressures of models proposed from outside.
15. Addressing you, ladies and gentlemen, you who have been meeting in this place for more than thirty years now in the name of the primacy of the cultural realities of man, of human communities, of peoples and of Nations, I you say: take care, by all the means at your disposal, of this fundamental sovereignty that each Nation possesses by virtue of its own culture.
Protect her like the apple of your eye for the future of the great human family. Protect her! Do not allow this fundamental sovereignty to fall prey to any political or economic interest. Do not allow it to become a victim of totalitarianisms, imperialisms or hegemonies, for which man counts only as an object of domination and not as the subject of his own human existence.
For these too, the Nation ― their own Nation or the others ― counts only as an object of domination and the bait of various interests, and not as a subject: the subject of sovereignty coming from the authentic culture which belongs to it in its own right. . Are there not, on the map of Europe and the world, Nations which have a marvelous historical sovereignty deriving from their culture, and which are nevertheless at the same time deprived of their full sovereignty? Isn't this an important point for the future of human culture, important especially in our time, when it is so urgent to eliminate the remnants of colonialism?
16. This sovereignty which exists and which derives its origin from the proper culture of the Nation and of society, from the primacy of the family in the work of education, and finally from the personal dignity of every man, must remain the fundamental criterion in the way of dealing with this important problem for humanity today, which is the problem of the means of social communication (of the information linked to them, and also of what is called the "culture massive ").
Since these means are the “social” means of communication, they cannot be means of domination over others, on the part of the agents of political power as well as that of the financial powers who impose their program and their model.
They must become the means – and what an important means! ― expression of this society which uses them, and which also ensures their existence. They must take into account the real needs of this society. They must take into account the culture of the Nation and its history. They must respect the responsibility of the family in the field of education. They must take into account the good of man, his dignity. They cannot be subject to the criterion of interest, sensationalism and immediate success, but, taking into account the requirements of ethics, they must serve to build a "more human" life.
17. Genus humanum arte et ratione vivit . It is basically affirmed that man is himself through truth, and becomes more himself through the ever more perfect knowledge of truth. I would like here to pay tribute, Ladies and Gentlemen, to all the merits of your Organization, and at the same time to the commitment and all the efforts of the States and Institutions that you represent, on the way to popularizing education at all degrees and at all levels, on the way to the elimination of illiteracy which means the lack of any education, even the most elementary, a painful lack not only from the point of view of the elementary culture of individuals and , but also from the point of view of socio-economic progress.
There are worrying signs of backwardness in this area, linked to an often radically unequal and unjust distribution of goods: think of the situations in which there exist, alongside a small plutocratic oligarchy, multitudes of starving citizens living in misery. This backwardness can be eliminated not by way of bloody struggles for power, but above all by way of systematic literacy through the dissemination and popularization of instruction. An effort directed in this way is necessary if we then wish to bring about the necessary changes in the socio-economic field.
Man, who "is more" also thanks to what he "has" and what he "possesses", must know how to possess, that is to say, dispose and administer the means he possesses. , for its own good and for the common good. To this end, education is indispensable.
18. The problem of education has always been closely linked to the mission of the Church. Over the centuries it has founded schools at all levels; it gave birth to medieval universities in Europe: in Paris as in Sologne, in Salamanca as in Heidelberg, in Cracow as in Louvain. In our time too it offers the same contribution wherever its activity in this field is requested and respected. Allow me to claim in this place for Catholic families the right which belongs to all families to educate their children in schools which correspond to their own vision of the world, and in particular the strict right of believing parents to not to see their children subjected, in schools, to programs inspired by atheism. This is indeed one of the fundamental rights of man and of the family.
19. The system of education is organically linked to the system of the various orientations given to the way of practicing and popularizing science, which is the purpose of high-level educational establishments, universities and also, given the current development specialization and scientific methods, specialized institutes. These are institutions about which it would be difficult to speak without deep emotion. They are the work benches, near which the vocation of man to knowledge, as well as the constitutive link of humanity with truth as the goal of knowledge, become a daily reality, become, in a certain sense, the daily bread of so many masters, venerated coryphae of science, and around them, young researchers dedicated to science and its applications,
We find ourselves here as if at the highest rungs of the ladder that man, from the beginning, has climbed towards knowledge of the reality of the world around him, and towards that of the mysteries of his humanity. This historical process has reached in our time possibilities hitherto unknown; it has opened up hitherto unsuspected horizons to human intelligence. It would be difficult to go into detail here because, on the path of knowledge, the orientations of specialization are as numerous as the development of science is rich.
UNESCO meeting place of human culture
20. Your Organization is a place of encounter, of an encounter which encompasses, in its broadest sense, the whole essential area of human culture. This auditorium is therefore the perfect place to greet all men of science, and to pay tribute particularly to those who are present here, and who have obtained for their work the highest recognition and the most eminent world distinctions. Allow me therefore to also express certain wishes which, I have no doubt, reach the thoughts and the hearts of the members of this august assembly.
As much as edifies us in scientific work - edifies us and also deeply delights us - this market of disinterested knowledge of the truth which the scientist serves with the greatest devotion and sometimes at the risk of his health and even of his life, so much must we worry about anything that contradicts the principles of disinterestedness and objectivity, anything that would make science an instrument for achieving goals that have nothing to do with it. Yes, we must concern ourselves with everything that proposes and presupposes these sole scientific goals by requiring men of science to put themselves at their service without allowing them to judge and decide, in complete independence of mind, on the human and ethical honesty of such goals, or by threatening them with the consequences when they refuse to contribute to them.
These non-scientific goals of which I speak, this problem which I pose, do they need proofs or comments? You know what I am referring to; suffice it to allude to the fact that among those who were summoned before international tribunals at the end of the last world war there were also men of science. Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me for these words, but I would not be faithful to the duties of my office if I did not utter them, not to look back on the past, but to defend the future of science and human culture; even more, to defend the future of man and of the world! I think that Socrates who, in his unusual rectitude, was able to maintain that science is at the same time a moral virtue, should lower his certainty if he could consider the experiences of our time.
Addressing science in defense of human life
21. We are aware of this, ladies and gentlemen, the future of man and of the world is threatened, radically threatened, despite the certainly noble intentions of men of knowledge, men of science. And it is threatened because the marvelous results of their research and their discoveries, especially in the field of the natural sciences, have been and continue to be exploited ― to the detriment of the ethical imperative ― for ends which do not have nothing to do with the demands of science, and to ends of destruction and death, and this to a degree never before known, causing damage truly unimaginable.
While science is called to be at the service of human life, we too often observe that it is subjugated to goals which are destructive of the true dignity of man and of human life. This is the case when scientific research itself is directed towards these ends or when its results are applied to ends contrary to the good of humanity. This is true both in the field of genetic manipulation and biological experimentation and in that of chemical, bacteriological or nuclear weapons.
Two considerations lead me to submit for your consideration in particular the nuclear threat hanging over the world today and which, if not averted, could lead to the destruction of the fruits of culture, the products of civilization developed over the centuries by successive generations of men who believed in the primacy of the spirit and who spared neither their efforts nor their fatigue. The first consideration is this. Reasons of geopolitics, economic problems of world dimension, terrible misunderstandings, wounded national pride, the materialism of our time and the decadence of moral values have led our world to a situation of instability, to a fragile balance which threatens to 'to be destroyed from one moment to another as a result of errors of judgment,
Another consideration adds to this worrying prospect. Can we still be sure today that the disruption of the balance would not lead to war, and to a war that would not hesitate to resort to nuclear weapons? Until now it has been said that nuclear weapons have been a deterrent that has prevented the outbreak of a major war, and that is probably true.
But we can at the same time wonder whether it will always be so. Nuclear weapons, of whatever order of magnitude or whatever type, are becoming more sophisticated every year, and they are being added to the arsenals of a growing number of countries. How can we be sure that the use of nuclear weapons, even for national defense purposes or in limited conflicts, will not lead to an inevitable escalation, leading to a destruction that humanity cannot envisage , nor accept? But it is not you, men of science and culture, that I should ask not to close your eyes to what a nuclear war can mean for all of humanity [ 3 ].
22. Ladies and gentlemen, the world will not be able to continue on this path for long. To the man who has become aware of the situation and what is at stake, who is also inspired by the elementary sense of the responsibilities incumbent on everyone, a conviction imposes itself, which is at the same time a moral imperative: it is necessary to mobilize consciences! We must increase the efforts of human consciences to the extent of the tension between good and evil to which men are subjected at the end of the twentieth century. We must be convinced of the priority of ethics over technique, of the primacy of the person over things, of the superiority of the mind over matter [ 4]. The cause of man will be served if science unites with conscience. The man of science will really help humanity if he preserves "the sense of the transcendence of man over the world and of God over man" [ 5 ].
Thus, taking the opportunity of my presence today at UNESCO Headquarters, I, son of humanity and Bishop of Rome, address myself directly to you, men of science, to you who are gathered here, to you the highest authorities in all fields of modern science. And I address myself, through you, to your colleagues and friends from all countries and all continents.
I address you in the name of this terrible threat hanging over humanity, and, at the same time, in the name of the future and the good of this humanity throughout the world. And I implore you: let us deploy “all our efforts to establish and respect, in all fields of science, the primacy of ethics. Above all, let us exert our efforts to preserve the human family from the horrible prospect of nuclear war!
I addressed this subject before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on October 2 last year. I'm talking to you about it today. I address your intelligence and your heart, beyond passions, ideologies and borders. I address myself to all those who, by their political or economic power, could be and often are led to impose on men of science the conditions of their work and its orientation. I address myself above all to each scientist individually and to the entire international scientific community.
All together you are an enormous power: the power of intelligences and consciences!
Show yourselves more powerful than the most powerful of our contemporary world! Resolve to show the noblest solidarity with humanity: that which is based on the dignity of the human person. Build peace starting with the foundation: respect for all human rights, those which are linked to its material and economic dimension as well as those which are linked to the spiritual and interior dimension of its existence in this world. May wisdom inspire you! May love guide you, that love which will quell the growing threat of hatred and destruction! Men of science, pledge all your moral authority to save humanity from nuclear destruction.
23. It has been given to me to realize today one of the strongest desires of my heart. It was given to me to penetrate, right here, inside the Areopagus which is that of the whole world. It has been given to me to say to all of you, to you, members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to you who work for the good and for the reconciliation of men and peoples through all areas of culture, education, science and information, to say to you and to cry out to you from the bottom of your soul: Yes! the future of man depends on culture! Yes! the peace of the world depends on the primacy of the Spirit! Yes! the peaceful future of humanity depends on love!
Your personal contribution, ladies and gentlemen, is important, it is vital. It lies in the correct approach to the problems to the solution of which you devote your service.
My final word is this: Don't stop. Carry on. Always continue.
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[ 1 ] Cfr. Speech at the UN , nn. 7 and 13.
[ 2 ] Cf. Saint Thomas, commenting on Aristotle, in Post. Analyt. , n.1.
[ 3 ] Cf. Homily for the World Day of Peace , January 1 , 1980.
[ 4 ] Cf. Redemptor Hominis , n.16 .
[ 5 ] Speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences , November 10, 1979 , n.4.
*AAS 72 (1980), p. 735-752.
Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II , vol. III, 1 p. 1636-1655.
L'Osservatore Romano 3.6.1980 pp.1, 2, 3.
L'Osservatore Romano. Weekly edition in French language n. 21p. 1, 9-11.
The Catholic Documentation n.1788 p.603-609.
© Copyright 1980 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
