International experts reflect on “The End of the World?” at Pontifical Academy for Life General Assembly

Despite Pope Francis' hospitalization for double pneumonia, activities at the Holy See remain uninterrupted.

On March 3, 2025, the Pontifical Academy for Life kicked off its 30th General Assembly under the title "The End of the World? Crises, Responsibilities, Hopes." 

The two-day event, hosted at the Pontifical Institute Augustinianum in Rome, brings together an esteemed panel of Nobel laureates, scientists, theologians, historians, ethicists, and media professionals.

Even with his serious illness, Pope Francis sent a message from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital dated February 26 to the conference’s international participants, whom he referred to as “women and men of science, as well as those in the Church who cultivate dialogue with the scientific world.” The assembled experts include Nobel laureates, scientists, theologians, historians, and media.

The Pontifical Academy for Life, based in the Vatican City State, was established by Pope Saint John Paul II on February 11, 1994, for the defense and promotion of the value of human life and the dignity of the person.

According to its stated mission, it is concerned with studying contemporary problems from an interdisciplinary perspective and thus brings together a diverse group of international experts across many fields. The Academy also has as its aim to form persons in a culture of life through its many initiatives and to inform Church leaders, scientific institutions, healthcare organizations, the media, and civil society about the most significant results of its study and research.

This takes its work from abortion to ecology, the social impact of technological advancements like artificial intelligence, and issues of quality of life that integrate spiritual and physical values between the human person and the larger universe.

The Pontifical Academy for Life serves an institutional role in cooperation with the other departments known as dicasteries that constitute the Roman Curia, which administers the offices of the Pope. In its efforts to promote and spread the culture of life, the Academy’s network extends to institutes of higher education, scientific societies, and research centers. Its president, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, appointed on August 15, 2016, opened this year’s General Assembly, which focuses on the convergence of war, climate change, energy problems, epidemics, migration, and technological innovation as a “polycrisis.”. 

In his February 26 message, Pope Francis addressed humanity’s relation to this interconnectedness. “These ways of interpreting the world and its evolution can provide us with signs of hope through their unprecedented forms of relatedness, which we are seeking as pilgrims during this Jubilee year.” Hope that we’re seeking does not consist of waiting with resignation but of striving towards true life, which leads well beyond the narrow individual perimeter.” 

In the General Assembly’s opening press conference on March 3, Archbishop Paglia said, “From the climate crisis to nuclear weapons, the human being can destroy itself, where we are really in a crisis about how to live together.” 

The two-day assembly includes dialogues animated around the themes of responsibility and hope, inherent within any crisis. Among the participants is Hungarian Katalin Karikó, recipient of the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2023. “When we see what’s happening around the world, I feel an obligation, despite my health difficulties, to come here with colleagues from other fields to accomplish something and suggest things because we scientists observe and experiment,” she said in the press conference.

Italian physicist Guido Tonelli, also among those taking part, followed her, adding, “Technology has radically changed and improved our lives from those of our grandparents and earlier generations, and that has produced a major cultural change in how we see ourselves and our relations with others.” 

Henk ten Have, a Dutch professor of ethics and an Assembly participant, extended the generational outlook: “Young people are pessimistic about the future, and there are apocalyptic visions about the future,” he said, pondering the history of fatalism and resignation that is also found in our society today. “It is ethically important to reflect on our values and in what way we want to continue. To achieve this, we should stimulate the imagination, especially in education, and think about possibilities that are not yet there.”

The occasion of the General Assembly also includes the presentation of the 2025 ‘Guardian of Life’ award, which goes this year to Sr. Giustina Olga Holubets, Clinical Psychologist at the Lviv Medical Genetic Center at the Institute of Hereditary Pathology and President of the Non-Governmental Organization Perinatal Hospice ‒ Imprint of Life. Her team's work, which began in 2013, provides wide-ranging support to families facing pregnancies with congenital and hereditary defects; it was the first of its kind in Ukraine. “This prize awards life, even when it is minimal and even when it is very, very short, she said upon receipt of her award. “Human life is found in moments of great fragility, especially when we enter and leave this world.”

The General Assembly of lectures, dialogues, and workshops is held during the Church’s Jubilee Year, whose theme is Pilgrims of Hope. The idea of polycrisis reflects on the convergence in our time and was coined by complexity theorist Edgar Morin, with the term being used by Pope Francis. These events aim in part to shed light on where there exist possibilities for transformation for the future inherent in the Church’s teachings on the dignity of human life. 

The Assembly thus chose as its representation the Biblical icon of Noah and the Flood. “It is up to us to work on the construction of a common ark for everyone, ordered according to the word of God, which Noah listened to carefully to build the ark,” Archbishop Paglia said during his intervention to open the event. “The theme of this General Assembly, ‘The end of the world,’ is an intentional provocation prompted by epic challenges, like the Great Flood in Genesis, which helps us to better comprehend our current time.”

This is a dialogue of international minds assembled to reflect on how God's creation can sail through the death and destruction of our current era with the possibility of a new beginning.