L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO
March 23, 2003.  Page 4.

[English Translation]

The Papal Audience for the delegation of the World Phenomenology Institute, Hanover, New Hampshire.

(The main text of the discourse to the delegation by His Holiness, John Paul II)

"Illustrious Professors!  I am very pleased to meet with you on the occasion of the presentation in Rome of the volume Phenomenology World Wide: Foundations--Expanding Dynamics--Life-Engagements; A Guide for Research and Study.  My congratulations to Professor Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, the founder of this work, and my greetings to everyone present.  I am grateful to everyone for this visit and the homage of publication, which is of particular interest to me.

"One of the important aspects of this work is to be a symphony of many voices, that is, a fruit of the collaboration of more than 70 specialists from various camps of phenomenological research.  This character, which we may call 'symphonic,' corresponds to one of the aspirations of Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology.  His desire, in fact, was that a community of researchers from diverse, complimentary approaches form itself to deal with the great world of the human being and life.

"We thank God for having also given me the opportunity to participate in this fascinating undertaking, beginning with my years of study and teaching, and afterwards in successive phases of my life and in my pastoral ministry.

"Phenomenology, first of all, is a style of thinking, of an intellectual relationship with reality, from which we wish to gather the essential and constitutive threads, avoiding prejudices and schematisms.  I would like to say that this is almost an attitude of intellectual charity towards human beings in the world and, for the believer, towards God, the principle and end of all things.  In order to surpass the crisis of the sense which marks a part of modern thought, I insisted in the encyclical, Fides et ratio, upon the need of an opening towards metaphysics, and phenomenology may offer a significant contribution to such an opening.

My dear friends, repeating my gratitude for your visit, and for the gift of this important scientific contribution, I wish you all the best for your activity, and offer a heartfelt blessing to each of you and your loved ones."