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Quote from: Neil Obstat

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Quote from: cassini

At Vatican II here is what they offered the world:

‘… The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are. We cannot but deplore certain attitudes (not unknown among Christians) deriving from a short-sighted view of the rightful autonomy of science; they have occasioned conflict and controversy and have misled many into opposing faith and science.’ --- Gaudium et spes, # 36.

The reference given to this passage was Fr. Pio Paschini’s Life and Work of Galileo Galilei, a book on the Galileo case that had been subjected to ‘several hundred modifications’ after Fr. Paschini died, as we shall see later.

When do we get to see that? .

Pope Pius XII was again present at the inaugural meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences held on the 30th November 1941 for the academic year 1941-42. By then of course, all scientific institutions worldwide were made up of Copernicans, relativists and evolutionists, and therefore it was men with such beliefs who were called on to fill all the seats of academies and institutions such as the PAS. Many were by then also atheists, for atheism and modern science are also sisters.
     Getting down to the real business for which the PAS was formed, it was not long before they revisited the Galileo case, giving as the reason that 1942 was the tercentennial of Galileo’s death and that this day ought to be celebrated. At this meeting, the president, Father Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959), who was also president of the Catholic University of Milan, gave a speech reminding the audience that the PAS is a ‘direct heir and legitimate continuation’ of the Lincean Academy founded by Prince Frederico Cesi in Rome in 1603, one devoted to the advance of scientific truth, as well as ‘living righteously and piously.’  Fr Gemelli announced a new book on the Galileo case had been commissioned by the PAS to be written by the scholar Fr Pio Paschini (1878-1962), president of the Lateran University at the time. He spoke of ‘a historical and scholarly study of the docuмents’ that would ‘be an effective proof that the Church did not persecute Galileo but helped him considerably in his studies.’ He then went on to give the audience a modernist view of the Galileo case, presenting him as a kind of saint whose only motive was to save the Catholic Church’s hermeneutics and exegesis from the ignorance pertaining in the hierarchy of the Church at the time. He proposed Galileo’s agreement to abjure in 1633 was not based on fear of being burned at the stake, but on his total loyalty to his faith and obedience to the Catholic Church. Galilean revisionism it seems has no limits. In his book, Finocchiaro relates a lesser-known speech on the matter given by the same Fr Gemelli at Milan University later in 1942.  

‘Galileo did not provide a decisive demonstration of Copernicanism, neither did Newton, Bradley or Foucault.’ --- Fr Agostino Gemelli, Milan 1942.

Two years later, in 1945, Fr Paschini finished his book Vita e Opere di Galileo Galilei. Pio Paschini was a seminary professor of the highest integrity, well used to researching docuмents in the various Vatican libraries. Working through the war years 1942 to 1944 he completed his thesis and submitted his book to the Vatican authorities for their attention prior to its publication. The first hurdle to achieving this was the Vatican Secretariat of State where Deputy Secretary Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) was in favour of publication. He in turn however had to put the matter in the hands of the Holy Office who were given the final decision whether a book could be published or not. Pope Pius XII, who it seems was also in favour of publishing at first, also sought the collective opinion of the Holy Office. The assessor of the time was one Monsignor Alfredo Ottaviani (1890-1979), and it was he who decided the book was ‘unsuitable for publication.’ In 1979, a group of Italian scholars researching the history of this book using the author Paschini’s extensive correspondence on the matter, uncovered the reason why Rome censored the thesis. It turned out that while all agreed the book was factual, it was not considered ‘politically correct’ as far as the now Copernican Rome was concerned. Paschini it seems; simply wrote down the Galileo case as it happened. The problem then was that once churchmen accepted Galileo was proven correct in faith and science, the Church just could not come out of recorded history in any way other than ‘guilty as charged.’ The last thing Rome wanted then was a book confirming and reminding a Copernican world of exactly what occurred in 1616 and the Church’s condemnation of Galileo in 1633. Paschini was asked to tone down certain aspects of his book. He was willing to do so in certain unimportant places but not with regard to its details as he read them from the archives. A year later, in 1946, the Holy Office told him his book was not going to be published and offered him money as compensation. Paschini was rightly devastated. He immediately shelved his book and returned to his career as before. Fr Pio Paschini died in 1962 never having re-edited his book.

The above (Gaudium et Spes), as agreed, is referenced with Fr Pio Paschini’s Vita e Opere di Galileo Galilei, a book Fr Paschini, in 1945, refused to edit for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences right up to the time of his death in 1962. In his will he left his work to an assistant Fr Michele Maccarrone, a diocesan priest and medievalist who in 1963 tried to have it published once again, even agreeing to its being edited first. The PAS, who wanted to publish the book back in 1945 in conjunction with Galileo’s death in 1642, were still interested, but this time to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of Galileo’s birth due in 1964. The Jesuit Fr Edmond Lamalle was assigned to make the changes, even meeting with the then Pope Paul VI who again approved its publication as he had with the original unedited book back in 1945 when he was Deputy Secretary in Rome. On October 2 1964, the manuscript was finally published under the name of its original author Pio Paschini with not a mention that it had been edited, or rather altered, to the extent that it was. ‘In Paschini’s work everything is said in the true light’ they said. But in truth this was a distorted version of Paschini’s book.

Indeed, after reading and comparing the two editions, one scholar described the book referenced in the docuмents of Vatican II as ‘intellectually dishonest if not simply a forgery.’ --- Richard Blackwell: Cambridge Companion to Galileo, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998, P.364.

the “letters” of the most Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange...constitute a special archive which is still under the pontifical care and secret, since the correspondence of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange treats and involves a very important and decisive period of the modern Church and, in particular, of the Holy See. Thus, some time will have to pass before this “material” can be placed at the disposition of scholars.