According to the Pope, the role of science is to serve humanity, a responsibility from which obligations stem, «not only referring to man and society but also, and perhaps most importantly, referring to truth itself.»
The Holy Father went on to explain that «along with the transmission of knowledge, a university and all scientific centers must teach how to recognize the honesty of methods and have the courage to reject what is methodologically possible, but ethically reprehensible.»
He urged intellectuals and men of science to «have the capacity and responsibility to foresee the effects of human acts, given man´s situation, not only in the present place and moment, but also in the furthest corner of the world and the indefinite future.»
