Did you know that the Roman Catholic Church has its own academy of sciences? I sure didn’t. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, located in Rome and dates its origins to 1603, has the following mission:

“The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is international in scope, multi-racial in composition, and non-sectarian in its choice of members. The work of the Academy comprises six major areas: Fundamental science; Science and technology of global problems; Science for the problems of the Third World; Scientific policy; Bioethics; Epistemology.”

There is also a Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Earlier this week Pope John Paul II gave a speech to participants in the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that touched on a wide range of science policy issues. Here are a few of the most interesting excerpts and my commentary.

The Pope strongly believes that scientific research should serve societal ends, in a manner that seems completely consistent with the perspectives of historian Lynn White Jr. (in PDF):

“The creativity which inspires scientific progress is seen especially in the capacity to confront and solve ever new issues and problems, many of which have planetary repercussions. Men and women of science are challenged to put this creativity more and more at the service of the human family, by working to improve the quality of life on our planet and by promoting an integral development of the human person, both materially and spiritually.” At another point the Pope says: “Indeed, the inexhaustible bounty of nature, with its promise of ever new discoveries, can be seen as pointing beyond itself to the Creator who has given it to us as a gift whose secrets remain to be explored. In attempting to understand this gift and to use it wisely and well, science constantly encounters a reality which human beings “find”. In every phase of scientific discovery, nature stands as something “given.””

But the Pope also appears to share with Milton Friedman, interestingly enough, the idea that research should be conducted without any external influences – it should be a pure search for the truth, what has at times been called “basic research”: “If scientific creativity is to benefit authentic human progress, it must remain detached from every form of financial or ideological conditioning, so that it can be devoted solely to the dispassionate search for truth and the disinterested service of humanity.” Presumably government support for science, which has financial and political constraints upon it, would also be excluded under this perspective.

Like we’ve said here before, science policy is everywhere.