Vatican astronomer on science

M

mia1994

1,000+ Posts
Here we have a vatican representative in a presumably vetted release saying that "...we can’t ask the Bible for a scientific answer" and that dogma doesn't require that man is unique in creation. This is a fairly nuanced (for the vatican) approached to science and discovery which is relatively new to the Papacy. When you add this to Jon Paul II's, and later Benedict XVI, public acceptance of evolution even as applied to homo sapiens, it seems as though the Vatican is firmly taking the position that the Bible is not a substitute for science, and that modern scientific theories are not to be disregarded because of a perceived conflict with accepted dogma.

The question is, does the stance of Rome and the catholic church represent leadership or followership? Is Rome pushing the faithful, or the faithful pulling Rome?
 
This is, historically speaking, not a new point of view within the Church. People within the Church considered the question even before the Reformation. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa considered, and seemingly granted, the existence of extraterrestrial life six centuries ago.
 
Mia,

I really believe the progressive stance the Catholic Church has taken towards science is in response to the realization that the church can no longer pretend to be the only arbiter of truth. If religion is to remain relevant the church must avoid conflict with science. That is easy enough, they only have to keep their ecclesiastical noses out of the realm of science. Stephen Jay Gould was right. Religion and science can co-exist if both respect NOMA.

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Mantaray, Cardinal Nicholas was a special mind. He also proposed a dimensionaly unbound universe as well. That said, 170 years after Nicholas' death Galileo was found guilty of heresy before the Pope in Rome, was forced to recant his views on a heliocentric solar system and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The point is there is a decided difference between what flows from a Cardinal of Germany and the Bishop of Rome. That this is coming DIRECTLY from the Vatican is noteworthy.
 
Meh, the Galileo argument against the Vatican is overstated. The situation was the result of personality conflict as much as theological conflict. Galileo insulted the Pope, so the Pope brought down the ban hammer. Galileo's had to be coerced into publication by a friend, a Bishop IIRC.
 
Anastasis, if the aim was simply to punish Galileo then blocking the book and house arrest would have been answer enough, but the Pope himself made Galileo publically recant his view in a heliocentric universe. Whether he did it because Galileo was a jackass or not, it was a very clear refutation of the model by the church... a refutation which was allowed to stand for 350 years. It was a clear statement that scientific theory in the western world required the stamp of the church. This is not an "overstated" case.
 
unlike evolution this statement does not seem to embrace any hard science. i would say the church is ahead of the curve here, as it is still only a liklihood that aliens exist and nothing close to a scientifically documented fact.
but instead of giveing them credit, we talk about the treatment of galileo in the 17th century.
 
AdmiralStockdale, I don't think the church gets credit for telling us that we are allowed to believe what we can see. I personally don't think the church has the authority to tell us what we are allowed to study or how we interpret it. That said, for thousands of years it was widely accepted that church DID have this authority.

To be clear, the meat of this article is not about aliens, the big bang or the origin of the species. The meat of the article is the church is confirming that science can be taken on faith without interpretation or qualification from the papacy. This represents a significant change in the operation of the church and as such is relevent to be discussed on its own merits.

Do you disagree?
 
The Jesuits have long been leaders in astronomy and other physical sciences. Fr. Roger Boscovich gave the first coherent description of atomic theory in the Eighteenth Century--about a hundred years before modern atomic theory became widely recognized. Fr. Max Hell was the first astronomer to observe the traits of Venus. Fr. Angelo Pietro Secchi is known as the "father of astrophysics" and Fr. Francesco Lana Terzi is known as the "father of aeronautics."

The Church has long recognized science as a valuable tool to understanding God's creation. And in that respect, it is wholly appropriate for the Church to be involved in science, both in expanding our scientific knowledge and in giving that knowledge context.

Only rarely has the Catholic Church expressed open disagreement with any scientific theory. There's good reason for that--get it wrong once and you look really stupid. The Church was wrong in its treatment of Gallileo, and has admitted as such. But for that error, it has been branded as being somehow opposed to scientific endeavor. That stereotype, however, couldn't be further from the truth. Many of the greatest scientific minds of the past 500 years have been priests, and many more have been practicing Catholics.
 
LL, come on, Galileo isn't the only time the church has taken issue with scientific theory, it is just the most grand example. The church has publically spoekn out against alchemy (early chemistry), continental drift, extinction and evolution just to name a few. Just because it didn't brand these scientists heretics doesn't mean that the church didn't attempt to influence discovery in general and science in specific.

If you don't think this represents a change to hundreds of years of the church injecting itself into the sciences, that's fine... but Urban VIII wasn't the only one who took umberage.
 
The church is almost 2000 years old. The Pope "forgave" Galileo in 1992, this is not a "long while back". This statement represents further advancement of what we've been seeing over decades.

If I'm the only one that thinks this is relevent, so be it. I'll let it die.
 
FJJP, I really hadn't intended this to be a debate on Galileo, but since the other topic really didn't strike any cords, I'd like to follow up on this a little.

First off, you can't compare what comes out of the Vatican to a blue law. The pope possesses infallibility and claims to be the voice of God's church on earth. You don't get to "weild" that power and claim a mulligan.

That said, this was more than something which just stayed on the books past its usefulness. Galileo was tried for heresy in 1633. His books remained on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for another 85 years after that, and remained censored by the church for over 200 years during which the church officially retained a non-heliocentric position. In 1939 Pius XII spoke favorably of Galileo in his first speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but intentionally DID NOT make any attempt to address Galileo's heresy trial. Galileo heresy wasn't forgotten by the church by a long shot. At best it was not talked about, but the position of the church as clear and unchallenged for 360 years.

This is to say, that the church has had a very tenuous official relationship with science for most of the history of the papacy. While the Holy See wasn't always actively persecuting scientists, certainly they had an opinion of any theory which proclaimed that the earth and man weren't always as the are now, or in Galileo's case that the earth was not the center of the universe. That the vatican itself (and not just high ranking members of the church) is openly validating the pursuits and conclusions of the sciences on their own merits is very new historically speaking. I thought it was noteworthy.
 
I can marginalize it the same way I can marginalize Alabama having a completely unconstitutional and unenforceable law making it a crime to enter into an interracial marriage as late as 2000.

They were just outdated words in a dusty old book that nobody ever read or seriously considered.

These changes might have symbolic meaning, but certainly not practical meaning. It's not like John Paul II's statements allowed Catholic scientists to finally do work that doesn't require a believe in heliocentrism. As far as the advancement of scientific study or popular acceptance of science, those words had no effect whatsoever.
 
i am not saying that the Church itself or even past popes have not been corrupt and did very very bad things. but that has nothing to do with papal infallibility. the pope is not supposed to be perfect.
 
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