Pope Francis and Science: A Healthy and Necessary Amalgamation for the 21 st Century

Pope Francis has given a strong impetus to the efforts and the trends of the Church in providing a common platform for the integration of science and faith (religion). Correcting its earlier mistakes, the Church, in the modern times, has been trying to see how science can deepen our faith. Some of the Church documents of the past about 200 years make it a point to highlight the possibility of mutual enrichment between science and faith. The present Pope has taken that task a step further to give a clarion call to the world of science to take concrete measures to protect the planet earth. He likes to interact with scientists in order to listen to them and to invite them to see their grave role in helping humanity to become responsible in their dealing with nature. This short paper begins with highlighting the general realization to bring science and faith together in order to grapple with deep realities of our existence. Then Pope Francis’ involvement with the world of science is presented to show how he is open to learn from science and at the same time he does not hesitate to call a spade a spade in pointing out when science happens to fail in its commitment to the total welfare of humanity and nature. The last section presents some of the insights from his encyclical Laudato Si’, underlining the need to have clarity in our priorities so that we, the most rational beings in the whole of creation, become very responsible in protecting nature and realized the urgent need for integrating Science and Faith