Copernicus reburied with honors

The remains of Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century Polish Catholic astronomer, were reburied last weekend with honors in Frombork Cathedral in northern Poland.



Copernicus’ remains, which had been buried in an unmarked grave when he died in 1543, were discovered five years ago at the cathedral and conclusively identified through DNA testing.

In an interview nearly two years ago with Catholic News Service, Auxiliary Bishop Jacek Jezierski of Warmia, Poland, who had supervised the search for Copernicus’ remains, said re-interring his bones in a fitting way was an important sign of reconciliation between science and religion.

“Unfortunately, many people have made the mistake of absolutizing one philosophical vision without reflecting on new insights and discoveries,” the bishop said in December 2008. “Preparing a new grave for Copernicus will thus also say something about us — that we recognize his genius and greatness and have come to terms with the progress of knowledge.”

The church condemned Copernicus' theory that the Earth revolved around the sun in 1616, and his book advocating the theory, "De revolutionibus," was on the papal index of forbidden books until 1822.

The reburial coincides with the cathedral’s 750th anniversary.

Medicine and vocation go hand in hand

St. Anthony Messenger magazine has a great online interview with Daniel P. Sulmasy — a medical doctor, ethicist and Franciscan brother.

He recently took a new position at the University of Chicago as the Kilbride-Clinton Professor of Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and Divinity School. He also maintains a small practice at a clinic for the underserved on the South Side of Chicago.

I like that Sulmasy sees no inherent conflict between his commitment to faith and his commitment to science; in fact, he says, “Being a friar and being a physician go together like air and lungs.”

Service is at the core of both his religious vocation and life as a Franciscan.

Here’s a quote near the end of the interview that I really liked:

“Poet T.S. Eliot said, ‘We had the experience and missed the meaning.’ I think it is very true for physicians. We have incredibly deep encounters with Christ in the work we do on a daily basis. All of us do. Too few have the chance to give ourselves the opportunity to reflect on that.”

Vatican urges caution following creation of synthetic cell

The Vatican is calling the recent announcement that scientists created the first synthetic cell an “interesting result” that could help humanity. But it noted such technology must be viewed with appropriate concern for its potential impact on the environment and the dignity and sacredness of human life.

“Genetic engineering can do good: It is enough to think that it could heal chromosome-related diseases,” noted an article in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, according to a CNN report.

However, scientists must “join courage with caution,” it said.

The research could ultimately lead to the development of vaccines and biofuels. But it could also raise new questions about the nature of life.

Genetics pioneer J. Craig Venter and his team of researchers used sequences of genetic code created on a computer to assemble the complete DNA of a bacterium and insert it into a bacteria cell. The new cell replicated on its own, controlled by the engineered genome.

Some scientists commenting on the discovery pointed out that Venter did not create life from scratch or a new life form.

In recent days Vatican officials like Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who is president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, have expressed concerns on the topic, noting that God is the ultimate source and creator of life.

He has been joined by other church leaders like Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian bishops’ conference, who said Venter’s announcement is a further sign of intelligence as “God’s gift to understand creation and [to] be able to better govern it,” according to an Associated Press story quoting from the Apcom and ANSA news agencies.

Cardinal Bagnasco also noted, however, that “intelligence can never be without responsibility. Any form of intelligence and any scientific acquisition … must always be measured against the ethical dimension, which has at its heart the true dignity of every person.”

Catholic school 'SciGirl'

Women have long been underrepresented in science-related careers. But a new PBS show, “SciGirls,” is on a mission to change how tween girls think about STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — and hopefully inspire them to pursue careers in these fields.

Each 30-minute episode of the show, which has a companion Web site, features two animated characters — Izzie and her best friend Jake — who confront problems only science can solve. They get help from real “SciGirls” who, as the show’s promotional site notes, “put STEM to work and save the day.”

One of the girls appearing in an episode is Peri Warren, a seventh-grader at St. John the Baptist School in Excelsior. The episode — "Going Green" — features the school and its lunch program.

Peri and her friends, Allie Wilkie and Mackenzie Jones, asked students to sort trash and compost during lunch periods. The girls then took the sorting one step further, learning about the different types of plastics and what the numbers on each container mean. Then, they initiated their own recycling project.

Other local connections featured in the episode include Randy’s Sanitation and the Recyling Association of Minnesota.

Caring for God’s creation is an important part of Catholic social teaching. We need more youth like Peri and her friends who are interested in science and conservation and more shows like “SciGirls” that encourage students to make a positive impact on their world.

Was the Inquisition anti-science?

Did the Roman Inquisition target science and hamper scientific progress during the 16th century? Many scholars have made that argument, but a new series released by the Vatican raises questions about that assessment.

Catholic News Service reports that the series' first volume is titled “Catholic Church and Modern Science: Documents from the Archives of the Roman Congregations of the Holy Office and the Index. (The “Index” refers to the now-defunct Index of Forbidden Books.) It features documents from the formerly secret archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding science and natural philosophy from 1542-1600.

Cardinal Georges Cottier, theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II and author of the volume’s preface, maintains that the Inquisition was more concerned about preventing the spread of Protestant ideas than a condemnation of science in the name of faith.

The co-authors — Ugo Baldini, a Galileo expert and history professor at Padua University, and Leen Spruit, an expert on the censorship of science in early modern history — say they aren’t sure what impact the Inquisition had on the scientific community of the time, but that historians will now be able to make a more honest assessment based on the series’ full reproduction of the archives.

The release of the series is good news. Even today, in many quarters, there is a false belief the church is anti-science. Such assessments are often based on broad generalizations made about a few notorious cases centuries ago, particularly the church’s condemnation of Galileo (whose trial will be covered in the next volume to be released in 2014).

The Vatican’s latest effort will provide some much-needed insight into this time in the church’s history.

Shroud of mystery

The Shroud of Turin — the mysterious piece of cloth that many people believe to be the burial linen of Jesus Christ — is on rare public display in Turin’s cathedral until May 23.

The Catholic Church has never made a definitive pronouncement about the shroud’s authenticity, leaving such judgments to scientists. But the faint image of a blood-stained man who appears to have been crucified continues to spark disagreement among researchers.

A recent story from Catholic News Service highlighted the ongoing debate:

“Carbon-14 tests in 1988 dated the cloth to the Middle Ages, and seemed to confirm the theory that the shroud was a pious fraud. But since then, some experts have faulted the methodology of the testing, and said the tiny samples used may have been taken from areas of the cloth that were mended in medieval times.

“The shroud has also been chemically analyzed, electronically enhanced and computer-imaged. So far, no one has been able to fully explain how the image was transferred to the linen cloth, although experts have put forward theories ranging from enzyme reaction to solar imaging.

“The shroud has been studied from virtually every scientific angle in recent years. Its weave has been examined, pollen grains embedded in the cloth have been inspected, and red stains have been analyzed for hemoglobin properties. One particular sub-category of debate focuses on enhanced images that, in the opinion of some scientists, reveal the impression of 1st-century Palestinian coins placed on the eyes of the shroud's figure.

“The ‘jury’ on the shroud includes hundreds of experts, some of them self-appointed. They do not split neatly into believers and skeptics, however. The latest controversy, in fact, involves a Vatican archivist who claims to have found evidence of writing on the shroud — a hypothesis that has drawn sharp criticism from other Catholic scholars.

“The archivist, Barbara Frale, said in a new book that older photographs of the shroud reveal indications of what was essentially a written death notice for a ‘Jesus Nazarene.’ The text, she said, employs three languages used in 1st-century Jerusalem.

“The book immediately prompted a Web site war in Italy. Several sites dedicated to the shroud ridiculed Frale's hypothesis, saying it bordered on Dan Brown-style fantasy. Vatican Radio, however, featured an interview with Frale about her ‘important discovery.’"

While it’s possible that science may one day prove the shroud is a forgery, the ongoing debate over the 14-foot-long piece of cloth doesn’t appear as if it will end anytime soon. On the other hand, it’s difficult to see how science could ever definitively prove the shroud reveals Christ’s imprint — science just doesn’t have the tools to prove such a direct and divine connection.

Still, the possibility that the shroud is a relic of Jesus’ death and resurrection is enough to stir deeper reflection.

Although I’ve never seen the shroud in person, I can easily imagine it would evoke the same kinds of feelings I’ve had visiting the sacred sites of the Holy Land. There, the ancient stones and archaeological ruins connect people to the stories of the Old and New Testaments in ways you can see, feel and touch — in ways that make them seem even more real and that help convey the deeper truths of the stories connected to them.

I think that’s what Pope Benedict XVI alluded to when he venerated the shroud during his May 2 visit to Turin, where he noted that “the passing of years has made me more sensitive to the message of this extraordinary icon."

The shroud, he said according to a CNS story, “conveys that ‘the darkest mystery of faith is at the same time the brightest sign of a hope without limits’ because it reminds people that Christ willingly embraced death to give all people the possibility of eternal life.”

Einstein's God

Krista Tippett hits the mark in explaining the relationship between faith and science in the introduction to her new book, “Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit.”

Tippett, who lives in St. Paul and hosts the public radio program "Speaking of Faith," argues that much of the current religion vs. science debate is based on the false premise that one of these approaches to truth must be right and the other wrong.

In short, she states (rightly) that science is not the enemy of faith, or vice-versa. While they may speak different languages, faith and science together give us valuable insights into the universe and our place in it. Despite the claims of some, one can accept scientific explanations about the “big bang” and evolution and still believe in God as creator of the universe and of us human beings in his image.

In “Einstein’s God,” Tippett explores the science-faith intersection in interviews with a variety of scientists — including physicists, surgeons and psychologists — who are interested in the spiritual aspects of topics ranging from quantum theory and mathematics to health and evolution.

The term “spiritual” is used rather loosely in the context of the people interviewed, since almost none of them is religious in the traditional sense of the word. The one notable exception — which happened to be my favorite interview — is John Polkinghorne, an Anglican priest and former Cambridge physicist. His ruminations on God, creation, love and the nature of suffering, although somewhat controversial, offer all Christians, including Catholics, good opportunities for deeper reflection.

“Einstein’s God” is worth the time to read. It would be especially good for book groups, whose members could discuss the bigger issues it raises.