Vatican University Squable About Pope's Position on Science

The Pope has canceled a speech at Sapienza University in Rome after a protest by students and faculty. He did forward the speech which is available online in Italian and in German. The New York Times writes:

The pope’s speech at the university, which was founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and is now public, was to mark the start of the academic year. But professors and students objected, citing specifically a speech that Benedict gave in 1990, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, on Galileo, condemned by the Inquisition in the early 1600s for arguing that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

In that speech, Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005, quoted the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend as saying: “The church at the time was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just.”

In the speech, Cardinal Ratzinger did not argue against the validity of science generally or take the church’s position from Galileo’s time that heliocentrism was heretical. But he asserted, as he has often since elected pope, that science should not close off religion and that science has been used in destructive ways.

Comment: I suspect that Pope Benedict is a far more subtle thinker than the Times quote would suggest, with thoughtful and nuanced positions on the role of science and religion in modern society. I would also suspect that the university community was worried about the influence of the church in what is now a secular university, and not simply angered at an 18 year old speech.

Clearly, in my opinion, universities depend on the exchange of ideas, and Pope Benedict is prototypical of the kind of thinker who ought to be invited to stimulate debate.

I find it surprising that he would feel the need to state that science should not preclude religion, since so few scientists advance the position that it should.

Science indeed has led to technologies that are extremely dangerous, and indeed these weapons have been used in battle to kill and wound people. On the other hand, there have been lots of wars, massacres and indeed genocide justified in the name of religion. Society needs to care to use both science and religion wisely and justly. JAD