Just
hours before joining hundreds of thousands of pilgrims celebrating
the centenary of divine visions at Fátima last weekend, Pope
Francis whole-heartedly welcomed scientists attending a Vatican
conference designed to bring science and religion closer together.
The
Vatican had invited leading astrophysicists and cosmologists to its
astronomical observatory near Rome to discuss “black holes,
gravitational waves and space-time singularities”.
The
four-day conference was in honour of the late Jesuit priest and
scientist Monsignor George Lemaitre. He is credited with formulating
the “hypothesis of the primeval atom”, which became popularly
known as the “big bang theory” suggesting that the universe began
with an almighty explosion.
Pope
Leo XIII set up the Vatican Observatory in 1891 with the idea of
dispelling the notion that the Roman Catholic Church was hostile to
science.
Such
a notion had been widely held since the Inquisition declared in 1633
that Galileo was a heretic for believing the Earth orbits around the
Sun. Faced with torture, Galileo formally recanted.
It
was the Catholic Church that recanted three and a half centuries
later, though it insisted the Inquisition had acted “in good
faith”. At a ceremony before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in
Rome in 1992, Pope John Paul II admitted that Galileo had been right.
Before
boarding his plane to Fátima last Friday, Pope Francis said
the issues being debated by scientists at the Vatican observatory
were of particular interest to the Church because they addressed
profound questions about the universe, such as its origin, structure
and evolution.
“It
is clear that these questions have a particular relevance for
science, philosophy, theology and for the spiritual life. They
represent an arena in which these different disciplines meet and
sometimes clash”.
Pope
Francis told delegates to the conference: “As both a Catholic
priest and a cosmologist, Mgr Georges Lemaître knew well the
creative tension between faith and science, and always defended the
clear methodological distinction between the fields of science and
theology.
“While
integrating them in his own life, he viewed them as distinct areas of
competence. That distinction, already present in Saint Thomas
Aquinas, avoids a short-circuiting that is as harmful to science as
it is to faith”.
Pope
Francis went on to say: “Before the immensity of space-time, we
humans can experience awe and a sense of our own insignificance, as
the Psalmist reminds us: ‘What is man that you should keep him in
mind, the son of man that you care for him’?”
The
Pope even quoted one of Albert Einstein’s favourite sayings: “One
may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility”.
However,
unlike some scientists, Pope Francis strongly believes that the
existence and intelligibility of the universe are not a result of
chaos or mere chance, but of “God’s Wisdom”.
A few hours later Pope Francis was in Portugal at the
shrine in Fátima where 100 years ago three unschooled children
claimed to have witnessed apparitions of ‘Our Lady of Fátima’
as she became popularly known all over the world.
The
children insisted they witnessed apparitions at Fátima on five
consecutive months. The climax came on 13th October 1917 when a crowd
of many thousands had joined the children to witness a promised
miracle.
It
turned out to be the so-called ‘Miracle of the Sun’ in which the
sun appeared to temporarily abandon its normal place in the solar
system and spin out of control towards the Earth.
As Galileo and many lesser people would probably agree,
appearances can sometimes be illusionary and deceptive.
The
day safer his return to Rome, May 14th, Mother’s Day,
Pope Francis addressed a crowd in St Peer's Square, reiterating a
theme wholly familiar to the Fátima faithful though not in
tune with the rationale of a great many scientists.
What
was needed to solve the world’s “absurd conflicts”, he said,
was more of the same as requested by the Virgin Mary at Fátima
a hundred years ago: “penance and prayer”.
No comments:
Post a Comment