In a volte face by the Vatican a controversial visit to Rome’s ancient La Sapienza University by Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday was today called off apparently because of security concerns amid mounting protests by both students and academic staff.
The Vatican, which had earlier insisted the visit would go ahead, said it was “opportune to postpone”.
A hundred militant left wing students had occupied the office of Professor Renato Guarini, the university rector, to demand that the papal visit be cancelled because of Benedict’s “obscurantist” stand on science in general and the Church’s treatment of Galileo as a heretic in particular. Sixty-seven science professors and lecturers at La Sapienza signed a letter to Professor Guarini calling on him to scrap the visit. Professor Guarini said the Pope was “saddened” by the protests.
“Glad” to see the campus has not let the pursuit of knowledge get in the way of dogmatism of radical secularism. It seems that this sort of open hostility against the church is more and more widespread (or maybe I just notice it more). How odd that the pope can visit a Muslim country but not a college in Italy!
Sad. Very very sad.
A small group of narrow minded students and faculty steeped in the dogma of the political left have managed to prevent one of the greatest intellects of the age from speaking at their university. What a triumph for modern education and academic freedom.
“A hundred militant left wing students had occupied the office of Professor Renato Guarini, the university rector, to demand that the papal visit be cancelled”
If universities and public officials give in to this sort of pressure, they’ll just get more of it. Responsible policy would be to give the occupiers a final warning, arrest all who remained, and prosecute them.
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The Screwtape Letters shed light on the radicals’ objections to letting Pope Benedict speak:
“We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere “understanding.†Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to become either slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.”
The real danger to academic freedom today lies not in some revival of the RC Inquisition but in PC-type censorship of the sort practiced by these students.
Great quote, Irenaeus. The “lecherous ones against Puritanism” speaks to the current church battle, doesn’t it?
#5 – agreed. I remember solemn warnings years ago about being ‘spiritual Rambos’ from people who were in no danger of sharing their faith with *anyone.
Katherine, how about
“whenever all men are really hastening to become either slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey†?
Dan, #7, it’s a good quote if one takes “Liberalism” in the original context. Like “fascism,” the meaning has changed in common usage. In economic policy, today’s “conservatives” have a great deal more in common with classic “liberals” than do today’s “liberals.” I’m speaking of the U.S. Terms differ in the UK and in Western Europe.
Katherine #7, Would you not also say that “Puritanism” has changed in common usage?
I know this thread is about the Pope, so I won’t sidetrack further (other than read your response if you make one) but it is a testament to Lewis that I as a reappraiser think he’s on my side, but most reasserters would claim him as well!
This pope understands nuance, but I wouldn’t put all my eggs in the basket of one philosopher of science (Paul Feyerabend). I respect that he would use F’s philosophy to critique Galileo’s argument on the relationship of science to faith. There is something unsettling about Galileo’s view that scientific truth trumps biblical interpretation. Scientific truth is always provisional. But on the other hand so are biblical interpretations and hermeneutical principles. Both revelations, from nature and scripture, are not always rightly read or understood; both contain their own mysteries and those who “read” them need rightly to guard against arrogance.
Benedict’s problem is that time and again he takes a topic that is rightly to be nuanced and handles it publically in an inept way. He’s not a politcally astute pope, unlike his predecessor. He seems to have assumed that he would be giving another academic lecture, as he did at Regensburg, but having spent a brief study period at La Sapienza several years ago and gotten to know some faculty there, I would not have chosen that venue for this topic. Better to present it to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences where he might get a more thoughful hearing.
Dan, #9, yes, “Puritanism” has changed too. We all like to take these older names and whack each other with them, when most often those we view as the offenders don’t really resemble the model too much. However, it seems fair to say that many reappraisers do view reasserters as rigid repressed judgmental moralists, which is the current usage of “Puritan.”
Also, the body of C.S. Lewis’s work paints him as a strongly orthodox Christian and Anglican believer. It’s a tribute to his writing skill that reappraisers claim him, but I think it’s mistaken.
#10 – I’m not sure you’ve been following this story very carefully. The comments date from an article written in 1990, not given as a speech to a university by the Pope. As can be seen from [url=http://ncrcafe.org/node/1541]here[/url], the article has been shamefully misrepresented by those who prefer the darkness to the light.
Thanks, #12, for the correction; my error. In looking over John Allen’s excerpts from Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks, I wonder what the point is of claiming that relativity has shown Galileo’s position to be not true: so what? As I said above, all scientific truth is provisional, whatever Galileo himself might have thought. And in terms of the local system, of course the earth revolves around the sun; the position of Copernicus was more accurate and closer to the truth than that of Ptolemy or Tycho Brahe. Galileo was convicted of disobedience, because in the eyes of the Holy Office he disobeyed its oder not to teach the Copernican theory; he was also declared to be “vehemently suspected of heresy” in the matter (whatever that meant).
Ratziner interpret’s Bloch’s view of science as simply instrumental and then claims that this is the view of modern science itself. I think that is quite inaccurate. Also, having studied the Galileo affair, I think that Feyerabend is reading too much into the Church’s reasons for silencing Galileo. I haven’t seen the social and ethical effects he claims were a concern of the Church in the trial record. That is not to say that Feyerabend is wrong about his conclusions.
I note that John Paul II, who was probably the most scientifically literate pope of the 20th century, re-opened the Galileo case. Correct my memory if it is incorrect, but I believe that the examiners found something to criticise on both sides.
A further thought. I think JPII re-opened the Galileo case in 1987, on the 300th anniversary of the publication of Newton’s Principia. I’m not positive about the timeline, but the committee who re-examined the case had issued its findings around 1989. I wonder if Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks were in part a response to the conclusions of the committee.-