Galileo y el Vaticano: Historia de la Comisión Pontificia de Estudio del Caso Galileo (1981–1992)

On November 10, 1979, at a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences commemorating the centennial of Einstein's birth, Pope John Paul II delivered a speech that also discussed Galileo's trial and condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633. John Paul II admitted candidly that church officials committed not only errors but also wrongs; and he proposed boldly that the Galileo affair is highly instructive and ought to be studied more deeply because it embodies the lesson that science and religion are harmonious, and not incompatible as claimed by traditional accounts. Accordingly, in 1981 he appointed a commission to study the affair, which for a decade sponsored publications, conferences, and other projects. Finally, on October 31, 1992, at a meeting of the academy occasioned by a conference on complexity in natural science, the commission's coordinator, Cardinal Paul Poupard, formally reported on its conclusions, and the pope made a new speech on Galileo. The pope did more than accept Poupard's report, declare the commission's work completed, and reiterate the views of his earlier speech. He explicitly praised Galileo's biblical hermeneutics over that of his theological opponents and insightfully connected the Galilean principle of separation of scriptural interpretation and natural-scientific investigation to the epistemology of complexity.

This is the tip of the iceberg studied in this book. It examines the documents found in the archives of the Vatican Secretariat for Nonbelievers, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and Poupard's personal papers. There are at least thirty-seven such documents, consisting of letters, reports, and drafts of speeches. Although a few of these were known, the great majority were previously inaccessible to scholars. In this book, many documents are quoted in full or in part. They can be utilized even by scholars who will reach different conclusions. For such reasons, this book is welcome and deserves to be translated into English.

The book has other merits. It establishes the key historical facts of this thirteen-year episode and formulates several well-argued theses. For example, the commission met only six times between 1981 and 1983. For the next six years, its four autonomous sections continued the work they had projected then, but the commission as a whole was completely inactive. In May 1989, John Paul II asked Poupard about the commission. It took Poupard a month to reconstruct the situation, with the help of the chancellor of the academy. This papal inquiry led to the realization that the commission had done all it could be expected to do, and so its work should be formally concluded.

Furthermore, the book does not shy away from evaluating the historical accuracy and philosophical validity of the documents' contents, as well as the appropriateness of various ecclesiastic actions. The evaluations are respectful, nuanced, and generally positive, but the book advances several criticisms. For example, it argues plausibly that neither the commission nor the higher authorities ever understood the complexity of the Galileo affair; the difficulty of the task of re-examining it; the need to invest considerable resources of time, personnel, and money; and the need to coordinate the several aspects studied by the four separate sections.

Moreover, the book begins with a destructive criticism of several influential anticlerical accounts of the Galileo affair predating 1979. Then it ends with an attempt to refute several post-1992 critiques of the Church's actions and pronouncements during 1979–92.

To conclude, this is an important book. Its documentary aspect is invaluable; its historical interpretations are well documented; its philosophical critiques are well argued. To be sure, I have a few reservations. For example, the authors display the same attitude toward Poupard's and John Paul II's 1992 speeches, namely mostly positive with a few criticisms; but this is too indiscriminate and is tenable only for the papal speech, whereas Poupard's report is filled mostly with errors. Similarly, the authors' criticism of some writers (e.g., Bertolt Brecht) is irrelevant; of others (e.g., James Reston) unnecessarily long; of still others (e.g., Antonio Beltrán Marí) too superficial. But such reservations do not undermine my generally favorable impression.