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the Pope's speech to be read in absentia at La Sapienza (Italian)
As the shock of the decision to cancel Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Rome's La
Sapienza University tomorrow sank in today you could hear two views in and
around the Vatican. One that it was an ill advised concession to a small
number of militant anti clerical students who wrongly think he is the enemy
of science and Galileo, the other, that it was a wise move by a pontiff who
refuses to back down an inch from his assertion of bedrock Catholic values
in the face of a secular world but sees no value in confronting extremists "with
closed minds" who only wish to destroy the Church and its faith.
"The Pope has never shied away from debate, but the students who
threatened to disrupt the visit were not interested in debate" said
Professor Assuntina Morresi, a Catholic who teaches chemistry and physics at
Perugia University. She found it "regrettable" that opposition to
the Pope's visit had begun among professors who had then failed to control
the resulting militancy among "a small minority" of students.
On the other hand, the Vatican did not exactly display a sure touch as the
crisis developed. On Tuesday, as some fifty to a hundred students occupied
the offices of the rector at La Sapienza, Renato Guarini, and the protesters
threats became shriller, the Vatican insisted there was "no change in
the programme". The first wobble came on the Italian lunchtime news,
with reports that it might change after all.
"I do not know any longer if the Pope will come" Professor Guarini
said. Then about five in the afternoon a short note from the Vatican - "Following
the well-known events of recent days it seems opportune to delay the event",
a euphemism for cancellation. The text of the speech would still be sent to
the university, a Vatican spokesman said. The students staging a sit-in at
the university gave a huge cheer at their "victory".
But the the general reaction was depression at this example of intolerance -
and concern over how we reached this pass. Italy is in danger of reverting
to the days before the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and the
Italian state, said La Repubblica, days of mutual hostility and mistrust.
The cancellation was "a defeat for the freedom of expression"
Professor Guarini said, while Romano Prodi, the Prime Minister, said "No
voice should be stifled in our country, least of all the Pope's."
Giuliano Amato, the Interior Minister, said he had warned the Vatican the
protests might turn violent but had assured it that the Pope's security was
guaranteed. "John Paul II would have gone and would have refused to be
intimidated" said one Vatican source. "In fact he did go in 1991,
even though he was heckled and whistled".
The Pope's speech at the university, founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 but
now a state institution, was to mark the start of the academic year. But the
professors at La Sapienza who started the row quoted remarks made by
Benedict in 1990, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and head of
doctrine, on Galileo, condemned by the Inquisition in the early 17th century
for arguing that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
The then cardinal cardinal quoted the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend as
saying: "The church at the time was much more faithful to reason than
Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social
consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational
and just." Sixty seven professors said in a letter that his words "offend
and humiliate us as scientists faithful to reason and as teachers who
dedicate our lives to the advancement and spread of knowledge."
Marcello Cini, the retired physics professor at la Sapienza who began the
protest three months ago, said he was "satisfied" at the
cancellation because "I thought, and I continue to think, that his
visit was ambiguous and an attack on the independence of culture and the
university".
It seems bizarre to dredge up a 17-year-old quotation on Galileo with which to
berate the Pope - and of course the row is not really about Galileo at all,
or not only. The real problem is that it is not only the motley assortment
of anti-clerical, gay, lesbian, feminist and far-left students at La
Sapienza who consider Benedict XVI deeply conservative, even reactionary,
and accuse him of rolling back the progress made by the Church at the Second
Vatican Council (1962-65). It is not just a matter of liturgy, the reversion
to the Latin mass, or encouraging priests to celebrate the Eucharist with
their backs to the congregation, as the Pope himself did last Sunday at a
mass in the Sistine Chapel.
The deeper issue is the role of the Vatican and the Catholic Church in
influencing secular laws on issues from abortion to stem cell research and
gay marriage. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Vicar of Rome, has called for a
huge turnout on St Peter's Square on Sunday in support of Benedict, and he
will undoubtedly get it. For Cardinal Ruini, as for the Pope, the Church's
insistence on voicing its views on burning social and ethical questions is
not interference but a right, even a duty. The "aggressive"
response of secular activists, says Professor Morresi, is not a show of
strength but rather the opposite - a sign that they cannot accept the fact
that religion, far from fading away, has again taken centre stage in human
affairs in the 21st century, not least since the 9/11 attacks in the United
States.
The question remains - how was the La Sapienza problem allowed to get out of
hand and deteriorate quite so quickly? Perhaps at its heart the problem this
pontificate faces as its approaches its third anniversary is one of public
relations. Benedict is a deeply thoughtful, scholarly, rather shy man who
has successfully overcome his remote and dogmatic "professorial"
image to engage with both individuals and mass gatherings in a warm and
human way. His weekly audiences on Wednesdays and his appearances at his
window for the Sunday Angelus draw even bigger crowds than those which
assembled for John Paul II. At those gatherings you feel genuine affection
and admiration for the Pope.
But as Marco Tosatti, the Vatican watcher for La Stampa, observed the other
day under the headline "Who writes the Pope's speeches?", there
has been one unfortunate incident and misunderstanding after another - the
row over the Pope's speech on faith and reason at Regensburg University,
taken to be an attack on the inherent violence of Islam, the failure to
include the word "Shoah" in his remarks at Auschwitz (it was only
inserted at the last moment when the omission was spotted by Vatican
journalists], his references to the benefits of colonisation in Latin
America on a visit to Brazil, the damage caused by a Vatican doctrinal
document declaring Protestant denominations were not proper churches, and
most recently his attack on the "degradation" of Rome while
meeting the mayor, which the Vatican press office had swiftly to "clarify".
And now La Sapienza, which has left the Church and its secular critics glaring
at each other across the divide instead of engaged in dialogue. Recent
reforms in Vatican communications such as the appointment of an outgoing and
refreshingly globally minded editor of L'Osservatore Romano have gone in the
right direction. But the fact that the Pope will not be in the Aula Magna of
Rome University on Thursday shows there is still work to be done. His
message to the students - and hence to the world - will be delivered, but by
someone else reading it for him, which is not the same. The La Sapienza
students may rejoice that they have "silenced" the Pope, but it is
a hollow victory.
