Pope Tells Fox News to Clean Up Its Act

Pope pulls out of visit to Rome university after outrage at his views on Galileo and science

· Government divided on protest over 1990 speech

· Row over letter signed by more than 60 teachers

John Hooper in Rome

Wednesday January 16, 2008

The Guardian

A student wears a mock mask of Pope Benedict XVI as he protests at La Sapienza university in Rome.

Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP

Pope Benedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome's main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo.

The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The Pope had been due to speak tomorrow during ceremonies marking the start of the academic year at Rome's largest and oldest university, La Sapienza. But the Vatican said last night it had been "considered opportune to postpone" his visit.

The announcement followed a break-in and sit-in at the rector's office yesterday by about 50 students and a furious row over a letter signed by more than 60 of La Sapienza's teachers, asking that the invitation to the Pope be rescinded.

The signatories of the letter said Benedict's presence would be "incongruous". They cited a speech he made at La Sapienza in 1990, while he was still a cardinal, in which he quoted the judgment of an Austrian philosopher of science who wrote that the church's trial of Galileo was "reasonable and fair".

The letter said: "These words offend and humiliate us." Among the signatories was the physicist Prof Luciano Maiani, who was recently appointed to head Italy's main scientific research body, the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche.

Maiani said he had later dropped his opposition to the visit after learning that the Pope would not be making the keynote address. But the daily La Stampa reported that a number of foreign scientists had since added their names to the initiative.

One students' group declared an "anti-clerical week" to protest at the Pope's presence.

Among numerous banners and placards put up around the campus, there was one that read: "Galileo recanted. We shall hold out against the papacy."

The Pope is known for his deeply conservative outlook and the controversy is the latest in a string of rows since his election three years ago. He upset Muslims with another quotation in an academic lecture, on that occasion from a medieval Byzantine emperor.

He has since been criticised by Latin Americans for his views on the colonisation of their continent and by Protestants for saying their denominations ought not to be considered as churches.

The newspaper Il Giornale, which republished his 1990 speech, said the Pope had "expressed a different position" from that of the Austrian scholar Paul Feyerabend, "absolutely not adopting it as his own". The Vatican's own daily, L'Osservatore Romano, carried an article by the Jewish mathematician Giorgio Israel, in which he wrote that the Pope's address "could well be considered, by anyone who read it with a minimum of attention, as a defence of Galilean rationality against the scepticism and relativism of postmodern culture".

Speaking before last night's announcement, Italy's deputy prime minister, Francesco Rutelli, said: "The attempt to silence [Benedict] in a place that is a forum for study, teaching and dialogue ... seems inconceivable." He noted that a pope had founded La Sapienza in 1303.

However, the trade minister, Emma Bonino, said the Pope already "held the floor morning and night".

Rightwing opposition MPs were outraged. One suggested La Sapienza, which means "wisdom" or "learning" ought now to be renamed La Ignoranza

Backstory

· Galileo Galilei was the Inquisition's most high profile victim. But by recanting his view that the earth moved around the sun, he managed to pay for his defiance of Catholic teaching, not with his life, but his freedom.

· Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo was a polymathic genius - a physicist, astronomer and mathematician who improved both the refracting telescope and compound microscope

· After ridiculing the views of the then Pope Urban VIII in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was ordered to stand trial for heresy in 1633. The judgment found that his view of the solar system was "absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures".

· He spent the rest of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition and died in 1642. It was not until 1835 that his Dialogue was dropped from the Index of banned books.

John Hooper

http://education.guardian...

Now after I send an e-mail to people in the media, I will include this message at the bottom.

"The Pope wants you to clean up your act"

The Pope continues to impress me. I have liked many of the statements he has made since his election.

Is it possible to get a bumper sticker on the back of the pope?

Think about it: Giuliani says he's Catholic, but he really isn't. Huckabee speaks at a preachers church which openly hates Catholics.

Mind you, the Pope also sent his cardinals to advice Bush NOT to go to war with Iraq before we went in. Who does that sound like?

I think it would be a huge boost for Ron Paul to meet with the Pope or greet him when he comes.

I understand some people call Catholics hypocrites, and believe me, many are I think. I know there are just as many Catholics in hell as there are atheists in heaven. However, the church as of late, especially John Paul II, greatly admires peace around the world, and righteously hates arrogance and pride of any country. (Especially considering the guy who helped formate the "Just War Theory" is now Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Catholic Church.)

What does everyone else think? Would it be bad for him to meet with him? would it be good? I think it would speak volumes about how horrible Giuliani is, and how Huckabee, though a minister, can not get the Pope's blessing.

There's a saying that Protestants(Ron Paul's Religion) have the Spirit of the Faith and Catholics have the Sacraments, and they both walk hand-in-hand.

Just a thought... What does everyone else think?

The only "news" organization I have known to be worse than Fox News is the English section of Vatican Radio.

It infuriates me to see this hypocrisy coming from the Vatican when their Vatican Radio English Service (Department) is run by a Marxist gay male named Charles Collins from Boston who doesn't know the meaning of fairness and balance in reporting.

An Irish fool named Sean Patrick Lovett is the official man in charge but Charles Collins makes the decisions in favor of pushing the gay and feminist agenda at the expense of everyone else.

Last January they did a hit piece on American men who date foreign women called "Mail Order Nightmares", featuring the daft Senator Brownback (McCain's campaign manager) saying they we were dangerous and all needed to be background checked because we are all out to "fulfill our sexual fantasies" as if 1) that is really the purpose of dating and 2) there would be any problem with having premarital sex while dating.

Of all the dishonest and repugnant "news" organizations I have called on the phone, the Vatican Radio English Service tops the list:

You can call Charles Colllins or Sean Lovett and ask them for their side of the story if you wish:

+39 06 6988 4654

The German and Polish Services at Vatican Radio are OK. They did not reuse the "Mail Order Nightmares" material for their broadcasts because they knew it was not just a matter of translating it, but accepting the agenda against American males.

I assume the Pope and the top director of Vatican Radio are just senile and do not know about the Marxist feminists in the English Service.

I have a book which claims that the NY Times claimed after WWII that the Japenese only died from the explosion of the atomic bombs and not from the released radiation. Of course, years later, people started to see the long, slow deaths from radiation exposure.

The Iraq war has also been presented as a "clean war" in which almost nobody got hurt; of course, statistical models have surmised that nearly a million civilians have died but "the US government" denies that-- of course.

to clean up his act also .

I am so glad the Catholic Church is putting out this message.

I really wasn't paying any attention to what our government was doing until the pictures of tortured prisoners appeared on the news. It woke me up. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever imagine that our wonderful country would do something like that. It was a real eye opener. The truth was out there, and it wasn't pretty.

When the media is used to manipulate or cover up the truth, they hold some responsibility for what is happening.

Any well-connected Catholic Ron Paul supporters that could arrange a meeting/photo shoot?

Washington D.C. April 16 (his 81st birthday)--will meet with President at WH and US Bishops at Basilica

Then on to NYC where he'll address UN, visit Ground Zero (let's hope Rudy's out of the race by then) and say Mass at Yankee Stadium (can't stand those stadium masses--sorry)

Wouldn't that be something...

But, I'll betchya they sure as heck are discussing it behind closed doors. If you ask me, more of these world leaders should be spouting off about our poltical propoganda machine that is the corporate media. Bush, does it all the time. Can you imagine President Putin making a statement and mentioning Ron Paul and our state ran media, like we have knocked theirs so many many times?

At least this may open more eyes in the Catholic Church. Maybe he's talking directly to Bill O'Rielly, he's a big self proffessed Catholic.

But yeah - id bet my eyeteeth that the catalyst is the unfair election coverage- thanks to Ron Paul supporters- people have been whining for years about sex & violence- but as the article out of Italy yesterday attests to- the unfair and unbalanced treatment of those who would shape policy is becoming blatantly obvious abroad. Its safe to say that by now even the pope knows "Who Is Ron Paul".

I like this. Pope trying to lay the smack down. He's probably for Ron Paul.

Link please. Bump.