Mgr Bernard Genoud, Catholic Bishop of Fribourg, Lausanne and Geneva, criticized 'the illusion of knowledge' and teaching rooted in technique 'without any reference to values'. He called for an education system where 'masters' trained 'disciples', based on relationships of friendship and aiming to transmit values.
Speaking on 'the inalienable dignity of the human being', the former philosophy teacher said that he detected a return to a sense of individual responsibility. It was always easy to blame others. But this could lead to 'a strange mathematics' where, individuals were decent but the sum of their activities resulted in the mess that all condemned.
He quoted Einstein - 'we should not always do what it is possible to do' - to underline the importance of an ethic on which to ground all research and scientific progress
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