Pope Boniface VIII founded La Sapienza University in 1303. The university became independent in 1870. In 1990, Cardinal Ratzinger called the 1633 trial and conviction of Galileo for the sin of contradicting the Holy Church’s belief that the Sun revolves around the Earth, rational and just. So some students and 67 professors this month protested Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to the famous university to mark its opening day for the 2008 academic year.Question: Is this a story of protest over the Church’s position on science; or is this a story about censorship and freedom of expression?The rector of the university thinks it is about censorship and the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue agrees. After all, some of us now know that neither the Earth nor the Church are the center of the universe. But it was a nice dream while it lasted, wasn’t it?Peter Nuhn
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The Catholic Church is nothing but a history of repression of the truth. Any thing spoken in contravention of Church doctrine was, and often still is, harshly dealt with. For Ratzinger to call Gallileo’s fate “rational and just” in light of the truth Gallileo spoke back then and all the more so today, is for Ratzinger to reveal himself as a proponent of truth-repression.
To protest truth-repression is the opposite of censorship. It is an act of speaking the truth. The university rector is wrong, the students and professors are in the right.
Any informed person knows Ratzinger’s history. There is no censorship involved in refusing to listen to liars and their lies, or in refusing to allow them a forum to propagate those lies.
How this isn’t obvious to anyone of even moderate intelligence remains a real plexer to me.
Hear Hear
and just another example why religion deserves ridicule and has no place in the classroom….
especially the funny catholics
Now the real question is, was he sitting in his special chair that makes him infalliable? When he sits in that chair, he gets a direct line to God, it’s like God’s bat phone.
I don’t know Italian laws, especially regarding freedom of speech. Going off American laws, the Pope can say whatever he wants, the university is free to agree or disagree as they want. If the Vatican provides any funding to this university, they are free to withdraw said funding to show disapproval. However, if the Vatican owns this university, they are free to have the Pope speak there if they so choose. Personally, I am happy that this new Pope is so conservative, it’ll help drive the moderates out of the church. Although I would be sad to see Catholics reduced to the level of evangelicals.
This is a silly question. A protest is a form of expression. Exercising one’s right to assemble and express an opinion is not censorship, it’s precisely the opposite.
This isn’t censorship. They didn’t prevent the pope from speaking. They just made it clear they weren’t interested in what he had to say. He opted out himself. He could have still gone and made his speech, but it would have been embarrassing to not have everyone fawning all over him.
More people should stand up and say “We don’t want your repressive ass here.”
The censoring of who? Galileo or the Poop?
Karen said: “He [Pope B.] could have still gone and made his speech, but it would have been embarrassing to not have everyone fawning all over him.”
And all the more embarrasing (and utterly intolerable to the Papacy) to have had vociferous protesters in the audience. Who Would the Pope Taser? Likely every durn one of them protesters, and that wouldn’t have seemed very benevolent, now would it?
You might guess I have little but comtempt for Ratzinger, and you’d be right.
The mindset of Catholics like those who think the protesters should shut up was revealed by Archbishop Raymond Burke, who got miffed that the basketball coach at a Jesuit university has a mind of his own… Rick Majerus said at a Clinton rally that he “supports abortion rights” and the archbishop said…
“I’m concerned that a leader at a Catholic university made these comments. It can lead Catholics astray,” Burke said by telephone as he attended March for Life anti-abortion events in Washington. “I just believe that it’s of the essence for people to understand as a Catholic you just cannot hold these beliefs.”
Full story at:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3210049
cjn
I just can’t comprehend why people would worship such ignorance. Galileo and the other tortured, murdered and imprisoned scientists, philosophers, and great thinkers are heroes!
When galileo asked the cardinals of his day to look through a telescope they refused saying they didn’t need to look because they already knew nothing was there!
Cognitive dissonance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Science and knowledge are kryptonite to religious people. Sure, they can’t kill scientists now so instead they fund anti-science think tanks, hand out fake scientific diplomas, and lobby governments to destroy anything that contradicts books written thousands of years ago.
The inquisition is still going on just ask any geneticist, stem cell researcher, evolutionary biologist, etc.
I remember an article in Skeptical Inquirer a few years back, which made a few interesting points:
-Galileo was not thrown in a dungeon or tortured, or otherwise harshly treated. His confinement equated roughly to “house arrest”.
-Galileo did not present good evidence to support the heliocentric model of the solar system. I think he ended up concluding that ocean tides were evidence the earth was moving through space (like a Pepsi sloshing in a cup on your dashboard).
-The Catholic church went on to support research into the hypothesis, including allowing their cathedrals to be used to make precise measurements of shadows to plot the course of the sun. The research they supported was essential to establishing the modern view of the solar system.
This is a far cry from what I learned in grade school about that crazy dogmatic church repressing truth. Sure Galileo was right, but that doesn’t mean he *knew* he was right. The church was wrong, but maybe not quite so unreasonable as we have been lead to believe.
Now, the Galileo _lesson_ has done a lot of good for teaching the importance of Free Inquiry, but if we hold on to a lesson that turns out to not be true (or at least exaggerated), just because we think there are still truths in it, well, who’s being dogmatic now?
Perhaps we should stick to the Inquisition, witch trials, manifest destiny, etc., when citing our problems with past church policies.
While under house arrest Galileo, in his 70s, made some of the first measurements of falling/rolling bodies that would later lead to the foundations of classical mechanics. In the end Galileo made fools of those that tried to repress him.
What a waste of valuable resources the church is. Can we afford to be so wasteful in the 21st century?
Philosopher Giordano Bruno was condemned as a heretic and was burnt alive in Rome, because he believed that the universe is infinite and
heliocentric.
The church could not accept the concept that a infinite universe implies that there is no center in the universe, and therefore the earth and its humans,including them selves, may not be special at all.
ivory,
Well obviously he deserved to die!
Those thinkers and researchers and their devil ideas. Kill all the heretics, not even humanely, let’s kill them by setting them on fire so they will serve as an example to all those uppity book readers!
Why don’t the Muslims kill this asshole already?
See, I think they went the wrong way on this one. They should have let him speak and then had a q and a session. Imagine the pope trying to defend the church’s insane ideas and deny a heliocentric universe. That would have been hilarious and made international headlines. It’s almost like something out of the Onion only it’s real! Amazing.
“heliocentric universe”?
A little morphing fun with Ratzo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox-1MN-Ux3U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEsdl0jft1o&feature=related
More Pope fun. “A New Pope”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM
What
Sorry wrong term? Should I say heliocentric solar system? I thought I remembered the term from history (I guess Universe meaning everything we know at that point). Also, I’m home in bed with a terrible flu and a high fever today so I might be hallucinating.
bernarda
Were those Nunbots?
I wish I had a big helium turd to float over the Nationals stadium when he visits D.C.
Hmm, I hadn’t looked at The Free Dictionary in awhile, I like what they have done.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
pha
You are correct my post should have read, “a heliocentric solar system and a infinite universe”
My bad