The leaning tower of truth:
Spaeth, Robert L.
fetal transplantation therapy, to rely on the tissue from spon- ory of the solar system, the news arrived accompanied by some taneous abortions and those occasioned by ectopic...
...But reached the wrong conclusion is to say, "the sentence of 1633 if Galileo was right, who was wrong...
...newspapers across the country: the Catholic church Now, in 1992, the pope obviously wanted to bring closure was at long last admitting its error in convicting to the new Galileo commission's work-which in fact never the seventeenth-century scientist Galileo of heresy included a systematic review of the issues with an eye to some for believing the earth revolved around the sun...
...But who made the error...
...Proceeding with open eyes would mean allowing fetal research What is really contained in John Paul's address and what while remaining conscious of, and uncomfortable with, its isn't there-needs to be better known...
...a decision that year the aging scientist was convicted by the Roman must be made as to whether to proceed or to continue to ban Inquisition of "vehement suspicion of heresy" for allegedly dissuch research...
...in the November 12 issue of Origins...
...sions from the proresearch contingent acknowledging that we The newspaper stories purportedly supporting the headlines should be hesitant about the possibility of creating a high de- turned out not to be very helpful...
...Galileo had rejected the suggestion of parently convinced many that that's what he meant...
...Again, the pope lays the was not irreformable...
...It is not widely known that this commission did little John C. Danforth, is now a research assistant on the National original research on Galileo, that evidently no attempt was made Advisory Board for Ethics in Reproduction...
...volved not around the earth but around the sun," in the words Still later in the speech, John Paul does admit something di- of Galileo scholar Stillman Drake...
...If the latter, not only tertained a third option: to proceed with caution and with open the question of an error in theology but that of a wrongful coneyes...
...sue research, at some point, even in the midst of uncertain- Or was John Paul talking about Galileo's trial in 1633...
...I was Star Tribune reported, "Pope Ready to Admit Church's Error not convinced by the scientific or policy argument that using in Condemning Galileo...
...sues from non-elective abortions was soundly rejected by Knowing that the Catholic church rarely admits error, I was Congress and was seen by many research proponents as sim- intensely curious about what the pope actually said...
...Back in 1979, when John Paul broke a long-running official THE LEANING TOWER OF TRUTH silence on Galileo, the pope had in a sense settled the matter in ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS advance...
...In his 1615 "Letter to Foscarini," in which he explicitly advised address last fall, evidently his final word on the matter, he imGalileo to restrict himself to "speaking suppositionally and not plied much and directly asserted little...
...surd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly Despite the limited parameters of the debate on fetal tis- contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture...
...nous warnings contained in Bellarmine's "Letter to Foscarini...
...John Paul, in the same sentence about Bellarmine's "sug"Theologians...
...The editors Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, the pope claims, "to present the of Crisis magazine, in their January 1993 issue, have anCopernican system as a hypothesis, inasmuch as it had not been nounced-without adequate basis-that Galileo's condemnaconfirmed by irrefutable proof...
...To Bellarmine, it meant setting down a proposition such Henry Newman, summarized the papal tendency to defend past as the earth's motion merely as a convenience for calculation, papal decisions: "It is the presumption in favor of papal acts, and hence not related to the truth...
...John Paul simply While John Paul clearly avoided pinning any error on "the does not face the question whether Galileo was indeed wrongchurch," he apparently could not stop himself from taking a fully convicted, though his circuitous implications have apfew pot shots at Galileo...
...to reach a consensus, or that there really was no final report properly so called but only a short summary of the Galileo issue THE GALILEO FILE: STILL OPEN delivered by French Cardinal Paul Poupard, a member of the commission...
...But to be "irreformable" is not the same error off on "the theologians of the time...
...fetal transplantation therapy, to rely on the tissue from spon- ory of the solar system, the news arrived accompanied by some taneous abortions and those occasioned by ectopic pregnan- unintended humor...
...But the pope doesn't say it...
...The most that can be said for the pope's "admission" is that he implies several times that Galileo was right about the motion of earth and sun, and somebody else-but not "the church"-was wrong...
...false...
...And a Catholic diocesan paper, the tissue from sources other than elective abortions was not fea- St...
...The occasion was an address in Rome on October 31 by Pope Despite a detailed briefing by an NIH scientist about the lim- John Paul 11 to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences...
...from the men and agencies of the church...
...The proposition that the sun was the center ecutive order, but it is likely to lapse under the Clinton ad- of the world and stationary was declared to be "foolish and abministration...
...Cloud (Minnesota) Visitor was no less blunt: "Pope: Church sible...
...And it was soon publicly available in the U.S., feasibility of using only tissue from non-elective abortions...
...The Minneapolis we shouldn't just do research with this small percent...
...new conclusion, but rather produced several new scholarly pubSince Galileo has been dead for 350 years, and since everyone lications on Galileo by some of the commission's members...
...This is disingenuous...
...Stated in this way, such an "admission" is not exactly a startling finding...
...They didn't quote much from mand for aborted fetuses...
...And he answers his own question: "That is certainly true...
...Surely was indeed recommended by "theologians...
...Was he reply another maneuver to stall research...
...Proceeding with caution would mean the pope's speech, and the quotations that appeared were not allowing fetal research to move ahead using tissue from elec- entirely consistent with the headlines...
...Bellarmine had come within a breath of saying that Now that sentence, tricky as it is, contains a clearer impli- Copernicanism was heretical...
...At that time, the pope says, "the majority of theologians" were led by their misunderstandings "unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith a question that in fact pertained to scientific investigation...
...I regret that neither seriously en- delivered after the declaration of 1616...
...Can we expect no more absolutely" about such matters...
...tion "is now officially void...
...In ty and ambivalence, public policy must be shaped...
...John Paul gave his thoughts on Galileo in the context of conLIZ LEIBOLD McCLOSKEY cluding the work of a Galileo study commission he had appointed Liz Leibold McCloskey, formerly on the staff of Senator in 1981...
...President Clinton has made the decision and obeying a papal command not to "hold or defend" Copemicanisin, Congress has approved it...
...Moreover, to call Bellarmine's reference to "suppositions- Owing to John Paul II's unwillingness to speak unambigua suggestion to Galileo misses the harsh judgments and omi- ously about Galileo, the controversy will continue...
...Judging ited usefulness of tissue from spontaneous abortions and ec- from the headlines, the pope's admission was, if not timely, at topic pregnancies, in which he argued that only a small least straightforward...
...Paul...
...The New York Times headline said clearpercentage would yield usable tissue, I began to wonder why ly, "Vatican Says It Was Wrong about Galileo...
...Galileo and Bellarmine had dif- candor from the current pope-not even on a subject three-andfering views on what a "supposition" or "hypothesis" meant in a-half centuries old...
...For Galileo, a hypothesis was the tenderness for papal examples, that is the difficulty for a way to get at "the absolute truth of nature," as Galileo him- Catholicism...
...This is a distortion of history...
...Fortunately a journalist tive abortions as well as ectopic and spontaneous abortions, friend in Rome sent me the Vatican's English translation of the but on a limited basis while continuing to study seriously the pope's address...
...inherent connection to abortion...
...as "being reformed" or actually corrected...
...cation of admission of error...
...Common weal 26 March 1993: 7...
...John Paul omits the fact that Pope Paul V ap- gestion," asserts that Copernicanism at that time "had not been proved the condemnation of Copernicanism in 1616, which confirmed by irrefutable proof...
...else has long known who was right about the heliocentric the- But headlines to the contrary notwithstanding, nowhere in 6: 26 March 1993 Commonweal the pope's words last fall will anyone find phrases such as "the church was wrong," "the Vatican erred," or the like...
...In 1874 Lord Acton, in a letter to John science...
...Ultimately President ferring to the church's 1616 decision to declare the Copernican George Bush authorized such a fetal tissue bank through ex- theory heretical...
...The current pope the pope knows that "proof" was not the issue in Galileo's scialso leaves out the facts that the ten cardinals of the Inquisition ence but rather the accumulation of evidence supporting the who conducted Galileo's 1633 trial were closely guided by Pope Copernican theory...
...ROBERT L. SPAETH There, the cardinal, a powerful man, had said that "to want to Robert L. Spaeth is professor of liberal studies and director affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world...
...Bellarmine, Pope Paul V's leading theological adviser, had in- Who can say what John Paul really thinks about the 1616 jected himself into the controversy over Copernicanism in his condemnation of Copernicanism or about Galileo's trial...
...This approach, though, would have required conces- viction and punishment would need to be addressed...
...But a proposal to study the feasibility of using fetal tis- Erred in the Case of Galileo...
...Speaking then as now to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, John Paul praised "the greatness of Galileo" and then made the unprecedented admission that Galileo "had much to suffer...
...cies...
...John Paul first asks a question about the history of the Galileo case: "Has not this case long been shelved and have not the errors committed been recognized...
...Later in the address he alludes to the fact that Copernicanism was declared heretical in 1616 because it contradicted passages of Sacred Scripture...
...Galileo's discovery of the phases of the planUrban VIII and that their 7-3 decision to convict him and sen- et Venus, for example, "showed conclusively that Venus retence him to life imprisonment was approved by the pope...
...is a of the Christian Humanism project at Saint John's University, very dangerous thing" by virtue of "rendering Holy Scripture Collegeville, Minnesota...
...Now here may be a disguised and indirect admission that the church was wrong...
...rectly, namely, "Galileo...understood why only the sun could The closest John Paul comes to admitting that Galileo's trial function as the center of the world as it was then known...
...We now see that this is still a difficulty for John self put it in an unpublished essay in 1615...
...The pope sounded this theme again on several occasions during the Late last fall unexpected headlines appeared in 1980s...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 6
