On seeking truth...

Although the Pope's visit to Rome's La Sapienza University was controversially cancelled, fortunately the attempt to stifle his speech failed. In the speech, the Pope said that there is a danger in modern times that man may stop seeking the truth.

Benedict XVI asked, "What is the university? What is its task?", adding that: "the true, intimate, origin of the university lies in the longing for knowledge which is inherent to mankind. Humans want to know what it is that surrounds them. They want truth."

Benedict XVI said that over and above his ministry as a pastor in the Church... it is his job to maintain high the awareness of truth, inviting reason... "to seek truth, goodness, God and, on this journey, encouraging it to notice the valuable lights that have arisen during the history of the Christian faith."

The Pope noted positive elements of modern times, referring to the "new dimensions of knowledge" that have opened up, that there is more recognition of the rights and dignity of man and women.

However, he also warned that "the danger of falling into inhumanity can never be completely eliminated," and that "the danger facing the Western world... is that man today, precisely because of the immensity of his knowledge and power, surrenders before the question of truth...

"This means that, in the end, reason gives way before the pressure of other interests and the lure of efficiency, and is forced to recognise this as the ultimate criterion."

"There is a danger," the Pope observed, "that philosophy, no longer feeling itself capable of playing its true role, may degenerate into positivism; that theology, with its message to reason, may be confined to the private sphere of a particular group, large or small as it may be."