Speechless.
OK, so I can understand that the Catholic Church is struggling to appear relevant as more and more of its proclamations regarding the “real world” are reveled to be false… but this is getting a little stupid. C’mon, Benny. Really. The fat lady has sung. She’s already at the after-party raiding the buffet with 3 glasses of sherry in her.
The Pope praises astronomers on the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope of astronomical observation. Really, it’s the only option at this point, because the Catholic Church is now too impotent to get away with burning them at the stake. Of course, the deeper reality of the situation is that for as long as it’s existed, the Earth has gone around the Sun, not the other way round (as the Catholic Church had maintained for centuries s in the face of plain evidence to the contrary). Copernicus or Galileo or Newton didn’t flip things around at all. They merely observed the world as it is, and, setting aside Church dogma, honestly interpreted what they saw. The Church, despite its claims at being infallible and inerrant, turned out to be utterly fallible and tortuously errant.
Astronomy is a scientific discipline. In spite of any platitudes some spineless scientists spout about how science and religious faith can exist side by side with no conflict, science and religious faith are fundamentally incompatible. I defy anyone to explain to me how they can honestly, and consistently, trust both world views.
Can you do it? Bring it on!
[Some clarification appears to be in order: The challenge above asks "how", not "whether". The question is not whether one can or does honestly, and consistently, trust both world views, but by what method or process is one able to do so. -- ed.]