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BY CINDY WOODEN
THE CASE of Galileo Galilei should remind the Church that it must be extremely cautious when judging the latest scientific advances, the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives has said.
Bishop Sergio Pagano said Catholics should be careful “not to make the same mistakes” in applying biblical texts to scientific problems in a literal way.
He said: “I’m thinking about stem cells, the problem of eugenics, the problems of scientific research in these spheres, which sometimes I have the impression are being condemned with the same preconceptions that were used then” to condemn Galileo in 1633 for defending as fact the Copernican theory that the earth revolved around the sun.
“We must study more, be more prudent, evaluate the facts and be very attentive that the Scriptures, which are our inheritance without defect and cannot err regarding divine revelation, are correctly interpreted,” he said.
The bishop was presenting at a press conference an expanded collection of Vatican documents related to Galileo’s trial for heresy.
He said afterwards in a statement that the Galileo case also reminds science “not to presume to teach the Church on matters of faith”.
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