Here  you can read the Cardinal Scola’s declaration.

“Mr President of the Venetian Institute of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Directors of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Padua; of INAF, the Astronomy Observatory of Padua; of INSAP, the International Executive Committee; of the Vatican Observatory, honoured Conference participants, it is an honour for me to address you on the occasion of the Sixth International Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, at which you intend to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the first astronomical use of Galileo’s telescope.

Your important gathering has prompted the Holy Father to send you a message through the Patriarch of Venice, which I now have the pleasure of reading to you.

I take the liberty to add my personal best wishes to those of the Holy Father.

The presence of so many scientists at this Conference, many of whom explicitly refer to the Catholic faith, represents an unmistakable sign that the dialogue between faith and reason and science and religion – to which the Holy Father’s Message refers – is in existence.

To me this seems a decisive step towards turning the current anthropological torment created by rapid transition on our planet in the direction of that good life to which the whole human family aspires.

An interesting confirmation of the fruitfulness of your efforts is your intent within this Conference to seek dialogue with other important disciplines such as art, music and literature. Tending towards the unity of knowledge, which is too fragmented in our modern age, is a necessity which requires going beyond pure inter-disciplinarity.

Your choice of Venice as the seat of your Conference is more than an act of homage to Galileo, who presented his telescope to the Doge, because Venice, the city of humanity, is a place where the multiple manifestations of the human spirit in artistic, literary, musical and scientific works are called to exchange and thus enrich their views. Venice’s heritage and traditions bear witness to this, as does her present vocation as the crossroads of cultures.

I thank you all and apologize for the fact that other commitments oblige me to leave this assembly. I am certain that your time here will be spent in good work.