Navarro-Valls on the pope, science, and La Sapienza
Print Friendly VersionSpanish layman Joaquin Navarro-Valls is no longer the Vatican spokesperson, but he remains a prominent voice in the broader Catholic conversation. In yesterday’s edition of the Italian daily la Repubblica, Navarro-Valls commented on the protests which resulted in the cancellation of Pope Benedict XVI’s scheduled visit to La Sapienza University in Rome.
BY JOAQUIN NAVARRO-VALLS
By now it’s certain that the pope will not go today to inaugurate the academic year at La Sapienza University of Rome. By now, it’s also certain that everyone has watched this regrettable episode with perplexity and consternation.
In fact, many political and academic authorities, quite diverse in terms of their point of origin and sensibilities, have at least officially exhibited the most explicit and direct disapproval for the protests that prompted Benedict XVI to withdraw from his scheduled visit to the university.
Regarding these events, it’s necessary to reflect with a certain prudence. In fact, the first observation to be made could be a bit misleading. Given that, when John Paul II inaugurated the academic year several years ago at another Roman university, Roma Tre, there was no show of hostility regarding his presence, we could be tempted to think that today the climate has changed and that we’re moving towards a more intolerant position.
In truth, however, the invitation to Benedict XVI wasn’t handled especially well, since it was issued by the Rector without being confirmed by the Academic Senate. In addition, the presence of the pope became caught up in a political struggle internal to the university itself, which would probably have erupted in some other way, but which was able to exploit this high-profile event that was ideally suited for obtaining its ends.
Even though the internal context of the university is highly complex, one still has to understand the reasons that were adopted in support of the dissent from the visit of the pope, on the part not only of a group of 67 professors, a modest three percent of the faculty, but also a noisy, albeit small, group of students.
In effect, it’s from this point of view that the most original elements of what’s happened can be found.
Particularly emblematic, for example, was one of the slogans put up by a protestor, who offered the saying: “science is secular!” [Note: in Italian, “la scienza è laica!”]
Indeed, because the use of an adjective such as “secular” is quite curious in defense of a value that’s been sacrosanct for at least seven centuries, which is the autonomy and freedom of research in the university. It’s not by accident that I use the temporal marker of seven centuries, because the autonomy of science has been constitutive fact of the university from its medieval foundations, not a sort of accessory gained today. Moreover, this autonomy has nothing to do directly with the presence or absence of religious values in society or with the presence of a religious authority at the opening of an academic year. The strikes at the University of Paris in the 12th century make the point, as well as the dissent of Chancellor Gerson from the official policies of the 14th century. Both were important moments of liberty, well before the rise of modern science.
Setting all this aside, it’s worthwhile to ask, however, what is meant by a free and autonomous science today. It seems evident to me that such an affirmation must make reference to the fact that science is not defined by an y qualifying adjective, even by that of secularity.
Science is science, period. This affirmation is not a tautology, because it defines the criterion which belongs to science, that is, its method. The scientific process, as Rudolf Carnap taught – the father of neo-positivism – is science itself, free of unnecessary attributes which are extrinsic to its way of working.
Learning to distrust adjectives is a way of protecting the non-ideological aspect of science, that is, the autonomy of science itself from every prior bias. This is exactly what was missing from the dissent on this occasion, i.e., the freedom to engage in reason apart from ideological exaltation.
In the second place, there’s a truly intolerable hypocrisy regarding the question of Galileo.
Not only are we at a sufficient historical distance today to render ridiculous the anachronistic retellings of the event associated with old polemics, but the organizers of these protests, apart from employing the very obscurantist and censorial methods of which they accused the pope, know very well that the Galileo episode was characterized in the first place not by an intervention of ecclesiastical authority, but a free cultural struggle between rival scientific visions. The epistolomologist Thomas Kuhn, for example, drew from the Galileo case the very important concept of a “shift in scientific paradigms,” an idea which is today regarded as at the basis of scientific freedom and the exchange of ideas.
The criticism of Galileo was promoted not only by a few “dirty obscurantists,” but by advocates of the Ptolemaic vision, who – we now know, erroneously – were sincerely convinced of the scientific merit of the Aristotelian system.
In this sense, the physicist Marcello Cini, a signatory on the petition against the visit of Benedict XVI, had already written in a book published in 1984: “Everyone says that the explanation of Galileo is right, whereas the Aristotelian is wrong. In a banal sense, that’s true, but it’s an affirmation that doesn’t take us very far. Indeed, it actually interferes with understanding clearly what it means to explain something in a way different than what’s commonly accepted.”
Perhaps there are those, today as yesterday, who instrumentalize science and the complexity of scientific progress; but those who do so, always do it by impeding someone else from expressing themselves and from speaking, in virtue of some religious or racial qualifications.
This is the truly grave aspect of what’s happened, which is part of an unfortunately widespread practice in the West: intolerance.
This is also the profound difference between the movements of 1968 and the events we’ve seen in these days: we’ve gone from that era’s motto, “it’s forbidden to forbid,” to that of today: “science is secular.”
It’s a change of connotation from those who sparked the protest, who, poorly following Voltaire, have forgotten his, and our, educative principles that should always animate those who work in science. This, it should be said, is a “qualitative difference.”
The problem with Benedict is
The problem with Benedict is PR, not substance. Even as the head of the Congregation, he was careful and thoughtful - and NOT simply an authoritarian thug - in his intellectual evaluations, but not in his wording. (Mind you, there were many decisions of his with which I did not agree, but that doesn't make it fair to characterize him PRIMARILY as a man "who had spent nearly a quarter century taking away jobs from academics as well as condemning their writings".) It must be borne in mind that the policing of such academics and their writings was his job, and while I may have my problems with the structural arrangement of the CDF's role, I don't necessarily blame him for fulfilling that role as it exists.
The irony here is that this example parallels both the Muslim reaction to the Regensburg speech and the University's reaction to his comments on Galileo. In context, his analyses of Catholic theologians, his text at Regensburg, and his comments on Galileo all were reasonable and (I would say) wise evaluations, in general. But you have to pay attention to the whole speech or text to realize that. If you remove the quote from the whole, sure you can make the case that he's being unreasonable. But then, in reality, it is the one who removes a statement from its context that is being unreasonable.
I personally have no problem with anyone voicing their displeasure with the Pope. In fact, I encourage it. But at the same time, any critic who thought of Ratzinger as unreasonable and anti-intellectual and yet didn't take account of the whole of his evaluation of a theologian's work, any Muslim who took offense to his supposed attacks on their reasonability without noting that the context of his speech made it clear that this was not his intent, and any university faculty member or student who protested his presence on the grounds of his supposed opposition to the autonomy of science without taking into account the whole context of his remarks about Galileo is simply providing us all with an incarnation of the ironic. For it is the critic who doesn't read the whole of his antagonist's remarks who is what he accused Ratzinger of being; it is the Muslim who reacts to a portion of a text without noting its context who fails to be a reasonable Muslim; and it is the university faculty or student who doesn't pay attention to context who is actually contrary to honest and free intellectual pursuits.
Well said cashelguy! The
Well said cashelguy! The church through education has advanced science throughout the centuries, at times, acting as a trainer, using a muzzle on a dog. What we look at now, is a masterpiece of oil on canvas. Where the threads are visible,we see the same canvas or truth everywhere. Science or papal pronouncements can't and won't effect the truth. Both science and theology have been abused or manipulated but what the Pope has to understand is that both science and theology are the academies of truth and 'truth willl out in the end'.
Navarro-Valls is confusing
Navarro-Valls is confusing the issue. The reason the Church's condemnation of Galileo incites so much comment is not that the Church believed in the geocentric theory of the solar system and Galileo believed in the heliocentric theory of the solar system. The real issue was that Galileo believed the way to decide the question was to make measurements and observations and perform experiments and the Church believed the way to decide the question was for the more powerful people to imprison and torture the person with the theory they didn't like. That's why the question of Galileo still seems so relevant: the Church is still trying to decide empirical questions (not scientific questions, generally, but historical and philological questions) by the method of "I'm bigger than you so say what I tell you to or I'll beat you up."
The problem as I see it is
The problem as I see it is not that the church authorities condemned Galileo but that they placed on Catholics living at that time the duty of believing that the earth does not move. In other words, they gave to the words of the Bible a meaning they do not have.
“science is
“science is secular.”
Given history and the cultural schism between "the religious" and "the secular", the words were probably spoken with intent to provoke. Nevertheless, "secular" belongs to science and to religion, even as energy and matter belong to each other and to science and religion. The politics of matter pertain also to the theology of energy, if energy and matter are identity as Einstein says. The statements, science is secular, and religion is secular, might well be discussed in context with the discussion of evolution, for they are means/ end to each other. The disconnect of "the secular" from "the religious" is culturally hurtful because it disconnects humans from a holistic sense of belonging to nature.
Navarro-Valls essay is based
Navarro-Valls essay is based on a false premise. "By now, it’s also certain that everyone has watched this regrettable episode with perplexity and consternation." This incident may be regrettable, but there is little perplexity. Indeed, it is completely understandable.
When BXVI was elected, the College of Cardinals knew exactly who they were voting for. They elected a man who had spent nearly a quarter century taking away jobs from academics as well as condemning their writings. His office also had speakers banned from speaking at Catholic institutions, including universities. He has also made numerous inflammatory statements on all sorts of issues, including the Galileo case. Navarro-Valls suggests that "impeding someone else from expressing themselves and from speaking," is intolerant, even though that was what Ratzinger did for a quarter century. Apparently, Navarro-Valls believes everyone should just forget that. I'm sorry, but BXVI is a very poor poster boy for free speech. There are a lot of people out there who have taken offense to what Ratzinger has said and done both before and after he was elected pope. That they should voice their displeasure is the most natural thing in the solar system.
Steve
When Pope Benedict XVI was
When Pope Benedict XVI was elected, the College of Cardinals elected a man who was not afraid to speak the Truth.
"The reason the Church's
"The reason the Church's condemnation of Galileo incites so much comment is not that the Church believed in the geocentric theory of the solar system and Galileo believed in the heliocentric theory of the solar system. The real issue was that Galileo believed the way to decide the question was to make measurements and observations and perform experiments and the Church believed the way to decide the question was for the more powerful people to imprison and torture the person with the theory they didn't like. That's why the question of Galileo still seems so relevant: the Church is still trying to decide empirical questions (not scientific questions, generally, but historical and philological questions) by the method of 'I'm bigger than you so say what I tell you to or I'll beat you up'."
These are the issues that were behind Galileo. The Church's complaint with Galileo was not just what were the mechanisms by which the Solar System functions, but that Galileo refused to accept the his theorum on such as was in fact just another theorum and not DOGMATIC FACT. The Church had no "dog in the fight" between the generally accepted theorum of the day of workings of the Solar System as established by the Ptolemic scientists through their "measurements and observations" and the newer theorum he espoused - a heliocentric Solar System. It merely rejected DOGMATIC Galileo could be the only method to describe these mechanism. As it turns out, Galileo's theorum, while closer to actually than the Ptolemic, was in fact wrong, thus proving the correctness of Church's position as opposed to Galileo's. I believe that the physicist Marcello Cini was aware of this, based on his 1984 book. This makes one wonder just what Cini feared in having the Pope address the Academy.
Galileo's stubborn insistence that only he knew the "truth" reminds me of those dogmatic ADVOCATES of Global Warming today, that insist that the "debate" over the real causes of this recurrent phenomena of the Earth's Warming and Cooling is in fact "closed". Hardly the correct position for any supposed SCIENTIST.