Vatican to Honor Galileo
August 28, 2008, 10:05 pm
Posted by Paul Moses
There was a good read in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday on the Vatican’s plan to erect a statue of Galileo. As the Journal put it, his 1633 trial and conviction “may be the Vatican’s biggest public-relations debacle.” Now, it adds, the Catholic Church will build “a monument to a man who may be its most illustrious heretic.”
Any takers on who else should be memorialized in Vatican City?
Abelard. He was also silenced, but he left the medieval universities with a logic that set the standard of rationallity in the Church for centuries to come.
Abelard had various run-ins with the ecclesiastical authorities, but Peter of Cluny got his condemnation by the council of Sens abrogated by Rome. His problems were mainly with the local church and not Rome.
“Ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous.” (Mt 23,29)
“Be not the first by whom the new is tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside.” (Alex. Pope)
I wonder, Did anyone else get a chuckle out of Msgr. Melchor Sánchez de Toca, a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture? Given the chance to comment on the Galileo case, and to showcase a cultural refinement worthy of his position, he refers to Mexican soap operas. There was something both ironic and endearing here, something that shows just how much fun it can be to be Catholic.
Any takers on why Galileo didn’t publish in Latin (the language of scholarship) instead of the vernacular?
“It’s an effort to make him a symbol, an attempt to make Galileo one of the emblems of the church,” says Mr. Galluzzi, whose museum houses two of Galileo’s telescopes. “It’s the church which needs rehabilitation on this case, not Galileo. He was right.”
I guess the Vatican does not know how to refuse a donation. Is this the politics of apologetics or the apologetics of politics? I guess Darwin will have to wait. The victims of clerical pedophiles got their apologies in their lifetime. But the actions of the bishops seem to make a laughingstock of all this.
Maybe they will build a statue of Nancy Pelosi one day.
Apologies are intriguing. Even they might have to wait until judgement day. http://www.theamericanscholar.org/au07/apologies-beauchamp.html
Forget about Pelosi, Bill.
How about one with the many theologians the Vatican has silenced or tried to, inmcluding Fr. curran, whose new book on Moral theology today gets a very positive reveiw in the new America.
I guess we’ll have to wait awhile until Rome says Ok so the formula/catechism solves all folk will applaud.
Any takers on why Galileo didn’t publish in Latin (the language of scholarship) instead of the vernacular?
I’ll have to refresh my memory on this one, but it’s an interesting question. Is it going to be part of your case against the Vatican honoring Galileo?
David, let’s just say that my embarassment over Galileo is not endless.
The first post on this topic is from Ann Oliver.
This morning, I received this message from Dr. Rhodes at the commonweal@yahoogroups.com discussion group where Ann was an active participant:
SUBJECT: We’ve lost a friend . . .
List:
It is with deepest sorrow that I inform you of the death of Ann Oliver.
Dr. Rhodes
It goes without saying that I would ask that you remember Ann in your prayers.
John Borst, moderator of the discussion group
John, this is terrible and shocking news!
Ann was a wonderful and smart lady whose posts and offline correspondence were a treasure.
If you have info about memorial donations, could this be posted, please? Ann recommended a Catholic charity to me some time ago that was helping to rebuild her beloved New Orleans. If there isn’t a designated memorial, I’d be happy to find that info and provide it.
Jean,
I agree. She is the first person, to my knowledge that we have lost since I began posting in January 2000. The discussion group began in December of 1999.
I have written to Doc asking him to provide more information. I have also asked him for his phone number so we can talk. It must have been very sudden. In one of her last posts she described taking pain killers for shingles and complained of a lack of energy, but that certainly didn’t trigger an alert.
One unusual feature of two of here latests posts is that they were done from an iPhone.
I will update the information, if and when I have some.
John
I’m very sorry. May she rest in peace.
This is terrible news. O Lord, may your angels lead Ann to paradise.
May Ann our sister rest in peace.
Kathy
Descartes published in French and Latin and Hobbes published in Latin and English. I don’t know if anyone did a Latin version of the Galileo’s Dialogue, but he meant it to be a popular work. Wasn’t the Nuntius Sidereus (the sidereal messenger) published in Latin?
Hello Kathy (and all),
“Any takers on why Galileo didn’t publish in Latin (the language of scholarship) instead of the vernacular?”
I suspect the answer to your question is that Galileo wanted to reach the largest possible audience at the time.
In the 17th century, Latin was not the only language of serious scholarship. Leibniz, for my money the greatest mind of that or any era, published all of his work in French even though he was German. Hobbes published his monumental Leviathan in both French and Latin editions. Descartes published his Meditations in both Latin and French editions. For several reasons, the century 1625-1725 is unique in the history of science and philosophy. This is the only century during which most of the important philosophy and science was developed outside of the supervision of universities. This is also the first century in which philosophers tried to develop systems of natural law that they thought did not depend upon robust assumptions regarding theology. And of course, this is the century that inaugurated modern science. I think part of this intellectual revolution was am emerging tendency to publish one’s work in languages that were cultural vernaculars rather than in Latin.
Hello John (and all),
I was reading carelessly before – Have we really lost Ann? I’m too stunned to say anything more for the moment.
Kathy
Ooops! It’s Sidereus Nuncius, but the classical spelling is Nuntius. I was working from memory. It was written in Latin. I think the choice of Latin for scholarly work has someting to do with the desire for an international audience. Newton much later in the century published in Latin for that reason. Leibniz did use French, not German, probably because many educated people could use French. It was well on the way to becoming what English has later become. Perhaps Galileo was aiming for an educated but not necessarily fluent in Latin Italian audience. As I understand it, he attributed to the character Simplicio some thoughts that Urban VIII recognized as his own. Galileo was not diplomatic. But he was right, or at last on the right track, and Bellarmine, the Popes (Paul V and Urban VIII) and the Holy Office were in the wrong.
I can’t believe it about Ann. . . any more information? May God bless and keep her.
Giordano Bruno. His statue is in the Campo di Fiori. I used to walk by it when walking back from Fr. Foster’s Latin class in P. San Pancrazio to my lodgings near P. Navona.
I am so sorry to hear about Ann.
She wrote me an e-mail about a year ago speculating about how a Katrina-style disaster would affect New York (where I live). It included a list of ways to be prepared to evacuate your home on short notice. It was very detailed and practical, and amazingly charming considering the grim nature of the subject. (It ended with “Nag, nag, nag.”)
Update on the Ann Olivier situation:
I think it is time that I inform you that I have very strong evidence that the announcement by Dr. Rhodes may indeed be a very unfortunate and embarrassing mistake.
I have spoken with Dr. Rhodes personally and know that his post was made in the firm belief that it was correct.
I am now attempting to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is not correct.
I apologize now if I have given you inaccurate information of such a serious nature and if it will cause you any embarrassment in the future.
I will keep you posted as the situation unfolds.
The Ann who takes part in our discussions identifies herself as Ann Olivier, not Oliver. I’m grasping at straws here, but could there be some mistake?
I do have one small insight into Galileo and his use of Italian versus Latin.
I studied Latin for four years in high school, and were it somehow necessary for me to write a treatise about the earth revolving around the sun, I would feel much more confortable writing it in Italian, which I have never studied at all.
I join with those who hope there has been some mistake about Ann!
I expect that this is a minority view, with critics on both sides, but I honestly think that there should be a difference between the speculative theology that is kept in the academic sphere and that which is more widely disseminated. In Galileo’s time the branches of learning all affected one another, such that a treatise in natural science would have serious theological implications. Releasing a treatise in Latin would give the trickle-down effect time to work for the benefit of believers, rather than throwing the world into an agnostic tizzy.
Dear dotCommonweal blog participants:
I can now confirm beyond a doubt that Dr. Rhodes information is incorrect. Ann Olivier (the “i” was left out of Dr. Rhodes post) is very much still with us. I have had both an e-mail and brief conversation with her by phone.
Ann is both visually impaired and deaf, however I know from double confirming the phone number that I was indeed speaking with her.
I was in the process of writing the italicized post below when a message came across my screen from AnnO the name Ann uses at the discussion group. You can imagine both my surprise and consternation.
I just received a call from Robert Rhodes. He received a call from a friend of Ann’s who lives in North Carolina. Ann must have talked to her about Dr. Rhodes because Robert said she knew quite a bit about him even though they had never met.
Robert said the friend is currently flying to New Orleans for the funeral. She said she will phone Robert once there. Jean Doc is going to ask her about the charity but you may want to do some searching if it is not too difficult.
I also wrote this refection which in many ways is now a forecast of what we may all experience at sometime in the future
One of the things Robert and I discussed was how forcefully this news hit both of us. We agreed in many ways it was harder than someone you talk to frequently using the telephone.
I think it demonstrates that when people share their deepest thinking with you through writing that a very close and deep bond is established. Of course as in this blog it is not all serious. You also get the teasing and fun stuff which is partly what makes the bond stronger.
Even though many may drift in and out of a discussion group it really does expand the meaning of community, one which when a member is lost becomes more defined in one’s mind.
I do not know whether there was malicious intent on the part of whoever phoned Robert Rhodes. I can only hope not.
I know this is now somewhat after the fact but I do think there is a lesson in it for all of us, both as to the fragile nature of truth on the Internet but perhaps too as to the way in which we have entered a new era of “friendships” even though we may never have met face to face.
Just as I finished this post Ann send me a reply to my post phone call and post follow-up e-mail with this comment:
About the phone — it is useless to call me. It’s a new special phone that I got not long ago and because I got sick I’ve never been able to set up it up so I can answer it and record messages. I’m so sorry that that has inconvenienced you. And I fear it will be a while before I can get it set up properly. My older brother died recently and I am loaded down with stuff I have to do about his succession, so I haven’t had time to set up the phone. I’ve really had a dreadfull summer, but I assure you it hasn’t killed me yet. Actually, if you announced it to the blog I’m starting to think the whole thing is funny :-) Please don’t worry about my reaction. The one who concerns me is Dr. R. — I fear he badly misinterpreted something I said, poor old fellow. As I said before, I’m fond of him, and this won’t affect our friendship. I just don’t like to see a rumour started.
Ann O.
Let us all cheer and offer a prayer of thanks that Ann is still among us and that this was all an unfortunate mistake.
Dear Bloggers –
Thank you for the very kind thoughts you expressed at my pseudo-demise. I can’t tell you how much I have appreciated them. They are real gifts at a difficult time when I needed some gifts to cheer me up, So thank you, thank you, thank you. Particular thanks to John Borst for trying to squelch the rumor quickly.
I must say this has been kind of ike being dead and then overhearing what people are saying about you at your own wake, Hmmm. Wonder what the real one will be like :-)
Thanks again.
Amazing, Ann. Glad all of this picked you up. So some good came out of it. I guess we will have to do this once a month. Blessings.
Reminds me of how Tom Sawyer was given up for dead, yet was able to appear incognito at his own funeral to hear what people really thought about him.
Thankfully Ann was able to experience the internet equivalent of a funeral, though, unlike Tom, there was no variance in what people said about Ann before and after her mistaken demise.
Theologically speaking, I guess it’s sometimes possible to have resurrection before death.
It’s great to have Ann’s kilobytes back in the blog. :)
I was not expecting a resurrection when this string started, but so be it. Thanks be to God.
I’d like to add my candidate for a statue in the Vatican: John of Parma, who preceded St. Bonaventure as minister general of the Franciscan order. Thirteenth-century accounts speak of his holiness and simplicity in glowing terms, but he took the fall for a heresy scandal that occurred in the Franciscan order on his watch. It involved some imaginative elaborations on the writings of Joachim, a Calabrian abbot and scholar who had died a half-century before. Bonaventure, eager to demonstrate the order’s orthodoxy, put John of Parma on trial. It resulted in a sentence of life in prison for heresy. But a cardinal intervened, essentially arguing that John was framed, and John was allowed to live his remaining days in a hermitage in Greccio.
John of Parma was true to Francis’ vision in a way that many in the order were not. He has received significant recognition from the church – Blessed John of Parma was beatified in 1777, and his feast day is March 20. So let’s give him his statue and complete the canonization process, too. Anyone know a donor?
I vote for Margery of Kemp, professional pilgrim and pain in the neck.
Margery had something like a dozen kids and then left them all with her poor husband, John, to go off on pilgrimages. She often became hysterical at Mass, disrupting the proceedings so much that the neighbors tried to persuade the local priest she was a Lollard and should be burned up.
As fire insurance, Margery had her orthodoxy examined at every opportunity, and carried testimonials around in her purse from various abbots, bishops and priests. These she produced whenever annoyed worshipers tried to shut her up with accusations of heresy.
She went to the Holy Land, where her companions abandoned her because she kept up the hysterics during worship time and in between made incessant suggestions for ways that they could become more holy. She might have died–which was clearly what her companions were aiming for–when a kindly priest took her in and took her back to her erstwhile companions, who got a tongue lashing from the priest.
The sad thing about Margery was that she seems to have been trying to atone for some unstated sin that she may have felt so guilty for that she couldn’t bring herself to confess. She tortured herself as much as anyone, trying hard to prop up her sense of holiness, looking for signs in dreams that she had been forgiven, speculating that she might even become a saint because of the humiliations she had practiced in life.
I say Margery’s statue should be erected above a schedule telling passers by where they can find the nearest sacrament of reconciliation, as a reminder that there is nothing God cannot forgive a contrite heart.
What no one mentioned in all this is that the Vatican is using this effort to honor Galileo as an attempt to show how it is superior to science with reference to the historical Jesus and related matters. Galileo was left in the dust by the enlightenment which showed the many pitfalls of the Vatican’s attack against the sciences. By honoring Galileo the Vatican wants to show how Galileo would did not go this far since he insisted there cannot be any contradiction between science and scripture. This is true but it does not take into account that Galileo would probably part with the Vatican again today since it is insisting that its judgement supersedes the assertions of historical exegesis. Most likely, however, Galileo would side with the scientists today.
There is method to the Vatican’s madness.
Boy, Bill, I don’t know how you get that out of it.
The story Paul posted indicates that the Vatican is conflicted about accepting the statue from an anonymous donor. If it doesn’t accept, it looks like it’s dissing Galileo yet again, and if it does, it draws attention the Post-Reformation days when some factions in the Church wanted to smack down science.
The Galileo debacle is quite complicated, as I understand it. There were enlightened clergy, perhaps including Pope Urban, who seem to have been persuaded by Galileo’s conclusions. That more liberal faction was being squeezed by the more conservative forces of the Post-Reformation
Galileo was asked to hold off publishing his findings until they could be squared in some way with then-current beliefs.
Galileo refused, and his Church supporters were not strong enough (or perhaps not inclined to reward his disobedience) to buck the Inquisition, which tried him for heresy, though they were able to cut a deal that allowed him to continue studying physics (no more astronomy) and live under a kind of house arrest.
There were a lot of larger-than-life personalities in this incident. Neither Galileo, Pope Urban nor the Inquistors were shrinking violets, exactly.
I see the incident as one of the many examples–and certainly not the worst one, see for example Miguel Cervetes–of the Church’s Post-Reformation growing pains.
But it has been treated by historians, particularly anti-Catholic historians, in a ham-handed way to “prove” that Catholicism across the board is benighted, superstitious and out to control people by suppressing scientific truth.
The fact that the Catholic Church is now the only mainline denomination not hemorrhaging members that actually accepts scientific discoveries such as the process of evolution, and does not require adherents to believe in the literal truth of the Bible as necessary for salvation isn’t talked about enough.
Jean,
In one of Benedict’s books this correlation is made. In general Ratzinger is trying to show how the West needs the church and that reason is not sufficient. On the surface this is correct but Benedict’s designs are deeper. This is what “Ex Corde Ecclesia” was all about. The idea was to control Catholic universities so that the Magisterium would control the learning. This is why the Land of Lakes Agreement, which Ted Hesburgh worked out, was so important. The CDF, hosted in the US by the Cardinal Newman Society was going full force on this until the pedophilia scandal took the wind out the orthodox sails.
The reason the Catholic Universities are not “hemorrhaging” is because they have resisted Rome on its authority over reason insistence. It seems unlikely that the steam from Ex Corde will pick up again because the continued decline of vocations and the crisis in the parishes give Rome no moral authority. Especially, since it will not make service more important than authority.
The involvement of the American bishops in the present election is their way of restoring their authority more than anything else. It will blow up in their faces as it has done every time.
Ann, glad to know you’re still around (dotC and elsewhere :)
Perhaps Grant could pick a name out of the hat each month, contact the lucky guy/gal, and ask if s/he would object to being dotC’s “deceased of the month” in order to learn what his/her fellow bloggers think of the newly deceased?
:)
Am also rejoicing about Ann’s sharp recovery :-)
What about Tyndale?