Letter of Greetings from Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Academies; head of the Vatican's Galileo Commission was formed in 1981 and issued its final report in 1992. This letter was read to us by Cardinal Poupard at the beginning of our meeting. 

The Cardinal gave his blessing and support for our project, the centerpiece of which was Stargazer, the Rock Opera. Our project was to include the first public exhibition of the Vatican Secret Archive's original Galileo documents and artifacts. While in Rome, we spent an afternoon in the Archives, which was a surreal experience.

         Greetings by Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture

Remarks at the Vatican during our meeting with his Eminence who blessed our project for the Commemoration of Galileo Galilei

June 7, 2005

         Dear and Honourable Rabbi Irwin Kula, Craig Hatkoff, Doron Weber, Stefania Scorpio, Giorgio Fanara, William Shea, Eligio Ermeti, Renato Serio.     Good Morning and Welcome. It is my great honour and privilege to receive you and to speak to you today.  As the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and, more particularly, as President of the Committee set up to organize celebrations in honour of Galileo on the occasion of the fourth centenary of his first observation of a comet, I appreciate your presence here this morning.

Whenever I hear the name Galileo, an emotional chord strikes within me because on thirty first October 1992, I had the honour to present to our dear departed Holy Father John Paul II, the findings of the Pontifical Commission of Study of the Ptolemaic-Copernician Controversy of the sixteenth and seventeenth Century to which the Galileo Case belongs. It was an enlightening experience for me to learn not only about this great man and to appreciate his discoveries and achievements but even more to be able to have an insight into his life of faith. The Commission had posed itself three questions that had been raised over the previous 350 years: What had happened? How had it happened? Why did the facts take place in this way? After a long study, the commission was able to provide a calm objective response to the questions. It concluded that all the actors in the process, without exception, have the benefit of good faith, in the absence of contrary documents and acted according to the subjective knowledge they possessed at that time.

Galileo was not only a man of science of undeniable genius, but also a man of faith. He is a pathbreaker in indicating that Science and Religion do not conflict but are in fact two pillars of the same building. Galileo's theological greatness lay in his perceiving with St. Augustine that the Bible in its only concern to open for us the paths of salvation, and not to explain to us the movements of the stars, is not at all concerned with the truth of a dated and perishable cosmology.

         I would like to call to mind what the great scientist wrote in a letter to Fr. Benedetto Castelli on twenty first December 1613, "Holy Scripture and nature equally proceed from the divine Word, the first as dictated by the Holy Spirit, the second as the very faithful executor of God's commands".

         It is clear that human beings are searching for the truth. And their spirit can do this only in freedom. It is the duty of scientists in the name of conscience to guarantee this freedom. There is no doubt that progressive elucidation of doctrinal questions, still confused at the time of Galileo, nowadays permits us to disassociate religious faith from a geometric or nongeometric cosmology in contradistinction to Galileo's judges. There has been a gradual enlightenment on the side of Christians who nowadays understand without confusion the nature and object of revelation - namely, a divine teaching in human words, across expressions culturally circumscribed and dated, offered to all generations.

I am sure the planned celebrations like the seminars of studies, exhibitions of document, musical concert on Galileo and Pope Barberini both here and in New York will go a long way in making known the greatness of Galileo, his deep faith and his devotion to the Sacred Scriptures. My dear friends as you go about your work of celebrating the discoveries and the person of Galileo Galilei, I wish you all the best and assure you of my support and encouragement.

May God bless you and help you in your work.

Reference: Galileo Galilei, ed. Paul Cardinal Poupard, DPA, Pittsburgh, 1986.

The Galileo Chronicles:

Today's MindMap June 16, 2009