September 19, 2007
Rethinking the Vatican
Sarah Nelson
Advisor to the Pontifical Council for Culture, Vatican City
Minutes of the First Meeting of the 66th Year
President Giordmaine convened the first meeting of the 66th year at the Friend Centre promptly at 10:15 AM. following a hospitality hour. George Folkers led the invocation at a stately tempo. George Cody read the minutes of the last meeting’s talk on preparations in the south for the U.S. Civil War.
Among the 120 attenders were Charlie Jaffin who introduced his guest Immanuel Kohn; William Bolger who introduced Eva Heidmann and David Dodge and his guest, Peggy his wife. A moment’s silence was observed in honour of deceased members: Messrs Kayser, Poole, and Smolens and Brigadier General Whipple. The membership chairman, Charles Stennard, called attention to the dossier he distributed on eleven new members being proposed next week. The President announced that the shuttle bus would henceforth stop in front of the Friend Centre rather than half way down Olden Street. He also reminded committee members of the meeting to be held at later in the afternoon.
Bill Haynes introduced the speaker, Sarah Jones Nelson, advisor to the Pontifical Council for Culture in the Vatican. She has also worked at the Centre for Theological Inquiry at Princeton. The Project on Fragility, which she heads, can perhaps be described as a speculative venture amongst some experts in widely-varying fields who subject themselves to the often surprising discovery that they have a lot to say to each other. She is an Episcopalian and the members of the project vary enormously. The fact that it assembles under papal auspices is itself a remarkable thing.
The project recognizes a “continuum between art, religion, politics, mathematics, physics and philosophy”. She felt Shakespeare was right in saying “the uses of diversity are sweet”. As a point of departure, a distinction between “fragile” items and “robust” ones proved fruitful. Humans experience fragility in memory, love, perception, truth and values informing moral judgment. Fragility in these connections seems to mean that wide consensus about them is lacking and that they can be easily hurt or overturned.
How come Galileo has been rehabilitated and the Pope has even said that, unlike creationism, evolution is not just an alternative theory but a fact? She feels that such change illustrates the co-existence of the fragile and the robust. The Roman Church as an institution is a robust entity, as are the paintings springing up in it, but the church rests upon the faith and actions of a small, vulnerable, fragile group of disciples building upon the preceding fragile witness of the prophets. She traced the church’s history sketchily but sufficiently to show how perceptions of truth changed in the church. Though the project is not embarrassed by theology and enjoys Vatican support, it is independent of any formalized obligation to represent the Vatican.
One example of the practical application of their work in the philosophical field is precisely the dichotomy between the fragile and robust. Quantum physics casts doubt on the idea that we can divide off fragile concepts from robust manifestations. At least that is what our speaker said – I would not presume to weigh that conclusion. Are the effects of political realism – a creature of the Renaissance – fragile or robust? Other – to me inscrutable – examples were given.
Not to be intellectually thwarted, our members bombarded her with what she later admitted to be the best questions she had encountered – on “creationism” in the eyes of the Vatican, the erosion of God by science, their view of other forms of life, the role of women, why the conflict between Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Kung, among other topics.
The meeting ended at 11:30 AM with a crowd of intellectually-aroused Old Guardians descending on the speaker.
Respectfully submitted,
John Frederick
Among the 120 attenders were Charlie Jaffin who introduced his guest Immanuel Kohn; William Bolger who introduced Eva Heidmann and David Dodge and his guest, Peggy his wife. A moment’s silence was observed in honour of deceased members: Messrs Kayser, Poole, and Smolens and Brigadier General Whipple. The membership chairman, Charles Stennard, called attention to the dossier he distributed on eleven new members being proposed next week. The President announced that the shuttle bus would henceforth stop in front of the Friend Centre rather than half way down Olden Street. He also reminded committee members of the meeting to be held at later in the afternoon.
Bill Haynes introduced the speaker, Sarah Jones Nelson, advisor to the Pontifical Council for Culture in the Vatican. She has also worked at the Centre for Theological Inquiry at Princeton. The Project on Fragility, which she heads, can perhaps be described as a speculative venture amongst some experts in widely-varying fields who subject themselves to the often surprising discovery that they have a lot to say to each other. She is an Episcopalian and the members of the project vary enormously. The fact that it assembles under papal auspices is itself a remarkable thing.
The project recognizes a “continuum between art, religion, politics, mathematics, physics and philosophy”. She felt Shakespeare was right in saying “the uses of diversity are sweet”. As a point of departure, a distinction between “fragile” items and “robust” ones proved fruitful. Humans experience fragility in memory, love, perception, truth and values informing moral judgment. Fragility in these connections seems to mean that wide consensus about them is lacking and that they can be easily hurt or overturned.
How come Galileo has been rehabilitated and the Pope has even said that, unlike creationism, evolution is not just an alternative theory but a fact? She feels that such change illustrates the co-existence of the fragile and the robust. The Roman Church as an institution is a robust entity, as are the paintings springing up in it, but the church rests upon the faith and actions of a small, vulnerable, fragile group of disciples building upon the preceding fragile witness of the prophets. She traced the church’s history sketchily but sufficiently to show how perceptions of truth changed in the church. Though the project is not embarrassed by theology and enjoys Vatican support, it is independent of any formalized obligation to represent the Vatican.
One example of the practical application of their work in the philosophical field is precisely the dichotomy between the fragile and robust. Quantum physics casts doubt on the idea that we can divide off fragile concepts from robust manifestations. At least that is what our speaker said – I would not presume to weigh that conclusion. Are the effects of political realism – a creature of the Renaissance – fragile or robust? Other – to me inscrutable – examples were given.
Not to be intellectually thwarted, our members bombarded her with what she later admitted to be the best questions she had encountered – on “creationism” in the eyes of the Vatican, the erosion of God by science, their view of other forms of life, the role of women, why the conflict between Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Kung, among other topics.
The meeting ended at 11:30 AM with a crowd of intellectually-aroused Old Guardians descending on the speaker.
Respectfully submitted,
John Frederick