Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rjbapple () mac com>
Date: November 4, 2005 2:06:16 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, Dewayne Hendricks  
<dewayne () warpspeed com>
Subject: Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science

Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8DLNKR0J.html

November 04,2005 | VATICAN CITY -- A Vatican cardinal said
Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern
science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into
"fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for
Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican
project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and
science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is
part of the evolution debate in the United States.

The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992
declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of
Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual
incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus
Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun;
church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the
universe.

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us
to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and
in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we
want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in
the future," Poupard said.


But he said science, too, should listen to religion.

"We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the
atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are
fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical
or religious link," he said.

"But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its
links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said.


"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which
secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that
knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert
voice in humanity."
<snip>


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