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Illustration: Noah sends out the dove” – St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
Pope Francis’ message participants in the General Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life
[3-5 March 2025, Conference Centre of the Augustinianum]
“The end of the World? – Crises, Responsibilities, Hopes“
Rome, from “Gemelli” Hospital, 26 February 202
Dear Academicians,
It is always a joy for me to address the women and men of science, as well as those in the Church who maintain dialogue with the scientific world. Together you can serve the cause of life and the common good. And I warmly thank Archbishop Paglia and the collaborators for their service to the Pontifical Academy for Life.
In this year’s General Assembly, you have proposed to address the question that is today defined as “polycrisis”. It concerns some fundamental aspects of your research activities in the field of life, health and care. The term “polycrisis” evokes the dramatic nature of the historical juncture we are currently experiencing, in which wars, climate change, energy problems, epidemics, the phenomenon of migratory and technological innovation converge.
The intertwining of these critical issues, which are currently affecting different dimensions of life, leads us question the fate of the world and our understanding of it.
A first step is to take a closer look at our representation of the world and the cosmos.
If we do not do this, and we do not seriously analyze our resistance to change, both as individuals and as a society, we will continue to do what we have always done with other crises, even very recent ones. Think of the Covid pandemic: we ‘wasted it, so to speak; we could have worked more deeply on the transformation of consciences and social practices.
Another important step to avoid remaining immobile, anchored in our certainties, habits and fears. It is to listen carefully to the contribution of scientific fields of knowledge. The theme of listening is crucial.
It is one of the key words of the whole synodal process that we have undertaken, and that is now in its implementation phase.
I therefore appreciate that your way of proceeding reflects its style.
I see in it the attempt to practice in your specific area that “social prophecy” to which the Synod was dedicated (Final Document, 47).
In the encounter with people and their stories, and in listening to scientific knowledge, we realize that our parameters regarding anthropology and culture require profound revision.
This was also the origin of the intuition for study groups on certain themes that emerged during the synodal process.
I know that some of you are members of these groups and that you also appreciate the work done by the Academy for Life in recent years, for which I am very grateful.
Listening to the sciences provides us with new knowledge. all the time!
Consider what we are told about the structure of matter and the evolution of living beings: a much more dynamic view of nature emerges compared to what was thought in Newton’s time.
Our way of understanding “continuous creation” needs to be rethought, in the knowledge that it will not be technology that saves us (cf. Encyclical Letter Laudato si’, 101): supporting utilitarian deregulation and global neoliberalism means imposing the law of the strongest as the only rule; and it is a law that dehumanizes.
As an example of this type of research, we can cite Father Teilhard de Chardin and his attempt – certainly partial and unfinished, but daring and inspiring – to enter seriously into dialogue with the sciences, practicing an exercise in transdisciplinarity.
It is a risky path that leads us to ask ourselves: “I wonder if it is necessary for someone to throw the stone into the pond – even to be ‘killed’ in the end – in order to open the way”.1
This is how he began his insights, which focused on the category of relationship and interdependence between all things, placing homo sapiens in close connection with the entire system of living things.
These ways of interpreting the world and its development, with the unprecedented forms of relationships that correspond to them, can give us signs of the hope that we seek as pilgrims in this Jubilee Year. (cf. Bull Spes non confundit, 7).
Hope is the fundamental attitude that sustains us on our journey.
It does not consist in waiting with resignation, but in striving with zeal for true life, which goes far beyond the narrow confines of the individual.
As Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, hope “is linked to a lived union with a ‘people’, and for each individual it can only be achieved within this ‘we'” (Encyclical Spe salvi, 14).
It is also because of this community dimension of hope, in the face of a complex and planetary crisis, that we are urged to value instruments with a global scope.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing a progressive irrelevance of international bodies, which are also undermined by short-sighted attitudes that are concerned with protecting particular and national interests.
Nevertheless, we must continue to work with determination for “more effective world organizations, endowed with the power to ensure the global common good, the eradication of hunger and poverty, and the sure defense of fundamental human rights” (Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti, 172).
In this way, a multilateralism is promoted which is not subject to changing political circumstances or to the interests of a few, and which has a stable effectiveness (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum, 35). It is an urgent task that concerns the whole of humanity.
This vast scenario of motivations and goals is also the scope of your Assembly and of your work, dear members of the Academy for Life.
I entrust you to the intercession of Mary, Seat of Hope and Mother of Hope, “as we, the pilgrim people, the people of life and for life, make our way with confidence towards ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Rev 21:1 – Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.)” (Saint John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, 105).
For all of you and for your work, I impart my heartfelt blessing.
FRANCIS
