Faith Meets Life: Looking to the stars for answers

The British newspaper The Guardian reported that about 50 students broke into the offices of La Sapienza University in Rome to protest an appearance by Pope Benedict XVI. By now you might know that the Vatican cancelled the speaking engagement.

Some faculty and students claimed that it would be an insult to have the Pope speak. Recalling the famous story of Galileo's condemnation by the Catholic Church in the 1500's, they stated that the Pope represents an anti-science mentality.

Many of us know the outlines of the story of Galileo. Born in 1564, he made accurate observations of the stars and called for a view of the planets in which the sun, not the earth, was the centre. According to the popular account of his struggles, he was forced by the Catholic Church to recant his conclusions and spent the rest of his life a victim of religious-Christian persecution. The story is told in terms of a conflict between science and Christianity, meanwhile Galileo has been made a pioneering figure, a martyr, in the struggle for scientific truth over religious superstition.

There is more than a kernel of truth to the story. But is it everything it appears to be? I don't think so.

First of all, we can notice a few ironies. The first is that a Pope, in 1303, founded La Sapienza. The second emerges in a comment in the Guardian article, which refers to an address the Pope gave in 1990. A Jewish mathematician said that the address was a “defence of Galilean rationality against the skepticism and relativism of post-modern culture.” In other words, it appears that today's Pope has found some basic good in the deeper aspects of Galileo's thought.

Third, it is important to know that the version of Galileo's story that we regularly hear is simplistic. It is easy to learn online of some of the complexities. For example, there is a comment by McMullen Emerson Thomas on the Georgia Journal of Science website. A key problem for Galileo was that he didn't choose his words well. His approach insulted the Pope of his time, and this deprived him of opportunities for a more sympathetic hearing. Also, he lost some allies in the emerging scientific community of the day. He contradicted the better astronomical calculations of Kepler for example, and flatly ignored comets as being not real.

The main difficulty, as I see it, in what has happened between the Vatican and La Sapienza is that an opportunity for real dialogue between the papacy and academia is threatened. Many Italian scientists, and world scientists, do not regard the Vatican as the great Satan. And the papacy itself has lot of sympathy for the autonomy of science.

According to The Guardian, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister, Francesco Rutelli, said: “The attempt to silence [Benedict] in a place that is a forum for study, teaching and dialogue... seems inconceivable.”

We need more discussion between the science community and the Christian-Catholic faith, not less. We should not allow the simplifying of Galileo's story to torpedo the possibility of an open relationship between science and faith. Instead, we should search for ways of mutual enrichment of these two areas of human concern.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Previous Article
Next Article