VATICAN (CNS): The troves of knowledge stored in archives and libraries must be made available and accessible to all people, especially as they increasingly depend on technological means for their knowledge, Pope Francis told professors and students from the Vatican’s archival and library sciences schools May 13.
Scholars overseeing archives and managing libraries must have “a great openness to discussion and dialogue,” the pope said as he encouraged them to develop “a readiness to welcome,” especially the marginalised and those suffering “material, cultural and spiritual poverties.”
The pope encouraged the Vatican School of Paleography, Diplomatic and Archival Studies and the Vatican School of Library Studies to avoid becoming complacent in distributing knowledge, particularly given the “decisive and epochal cultural challenges” of modern day, noting the problems of contemporary scholarship “related to globalisation, to the risk of a flattening and devaluation of knowledge.”
He highlighted humanity’s “increasing complex relationship with technology,” the challenges of engaging with and studying traditional cultures, making sources of information accessible to all and the responsibility of scholars to “defend all from the toxic, unhealthy and violent things that can lurk in the world of social media and technological knowledge.”
Pope Francis urged them to share ideas and experiences with other academic institutions.
Marking the 140th anniversary of the archival school and the 90th anniversary of the school of library sciences, the pope praised their approach to problems and studies, which he said enables them to come into contact with past knowledge and transmit it to future generations.
“Confronting the realty of things is worth more than ideology,” he said. “Ideologies always kill.”
