Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science

rickym

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051104/ap_on_sc/vatican_science

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.
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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.

joelb

I would agree with this. Although the facts must be set straight.

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305sbs.asp

and

http://www.catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp

joelb

Oh, and...

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0138.html

not to mention...

http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/GalileoAffair.html

rickym

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305sbs.asp

CATHOLIC: The infallibility of the Church is a big subject, too big for now, but I can say this much. The infallibility of the Church attaches to its officially proclaimed dogmas, such as Christ’s two natures or Mary’s Immaculate Conception. These are matters of the highest authority. The Church cannot be wrong in these matters. But in matters of empirical science or anything that is not what is called de fide, the Church can and has made many reversals. The decisions in the Galileo case were disciplinary or procedural, not doctrinal matters at all, even though some individuals in the Church at the time thought they were. If these had been matters of dogma, the Church could not have reversed itself.


i heard this idea also from my uncle who was a priest to be. so is the infallibility of the church only on these too matters? and in all other matters they may be fallible? how about the infallibility of the pope only on these two matters, or also in 'ethics and morals'? how about the bible? fully infallible or partially?

why haven't they cleared this up earlier? is it it is well known and i haven't heard of it? or the church really doesn't discuss specifics? or the church wants us to believe they are infallible in all things, and fall back on infallible on only some things when they are not sure?

how about their idea on intelligent design, contraception, premarital sex, monogamy etc?

joelb

The Catholic Church professes infallibility only on points of dogma. Essentially it's infallible in terms of faith and morals.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm

rickym

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm

Infallibility must be carefully distinguished both from Inspiration and from Revelation.

Inspiration signifies a special positive Divine influence and assistance by reason of which the human agent is not merely preserved from liability to error but is so guided and controlled that what he says or writes is truly the word of God, that God Himself is the principal author of the inspired utterance; but infallibility merely implies exemption from liability to error. God is not the author of a merely infallible, as He is of an inspired, utterance; the former remains a merely human document.

Revelation, on the other hand, means the making known by God, supernaturally of some truth hitherto unknown, or at least not vouched for by Divine authority; whereas infallibility is concerned with the interpretation and effective safeguarding of truths already revealed. Hence when we say, for example, that some doctrine defined by the pope or by an ecumenical council is infallible, we mean merely that its inerrancy is Divinely guaranteed according to the terms of Christ's promise to His Church, not that either the pope or the Fathers of the Council are inspired as were the writers of the Bible or that any new revelation is embodied in their teaching.



correct me if i'm wrong.

the bible was supposedely divinely inspired and is therefore infallible. hence, the catholics could claim infallibility in terms of things other than 'faith and morals'. but it seems they don't why not?

joelb

Catholics claim the same thing for the Bible actually, that it is inerrant regarding faith and morals. As we are all human, and therefore imperfect, Catholics cannot claim inerrance or infallibility in anything other than faith and morals. Things in the secular realm are temporal and subject to change. Faith and morals belong to the eternal, and are therefore immutable.

See also: http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerran1.htm