"The Church never fears the truth of science, because we are convinced that all truth comes from God," Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, governor of Vatican City, said last week in Geneva, where he visited CERN and the Large Hadron Collider (which broke down just after it was first fired up in September and is expected to restart this fall). "Science will help our faith to purify itself. And faith at the same time will be able to broaden the horizons of man, who cannot just enclose himself in the horizons of science."

The Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has reviewed the upcoming Angels & Demons movie, calling it a "a gigantic and smart commercial operation" littered with "stereotyped characters" and historical inaccuracies. Ultimately, though, the paper concludes the film is just "two hours of harmless entertainment, which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity."
The movie, which deals explicitly with the relationship between science and religion, opens in theaters a week from today.

A group of scientists, philosophers, and theologians have gathered at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University for a five-day, Vatican-sponsored conference during which they'll discuss the compatibility of evolution and creation. Later in the week, the conference will also examine "intelligent design" as a cultural phenomenon (not as science). Stay tuned.

Back in March, we told you about the Vatican's plans to erect a statue of Galileo in its gardens—both to mark the 400th anniversary of his telescope and to help fully rehabilitate his image. (After the Catholic Church charged the astronomer with heresy, he was forced to recant his scientific view of heliocentrism—the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun—during his 1633 trial.)
Now, it seems the plan for the statue is on hold, indefinitely. Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, told The Times that the statue had "only been an idea," which is now "suspended"—though Galileo "deserves all our appreciation and gratitude."
Galileo, Ravasi said in a statement, can now be recognized "as a believer who, in the context of his time, sought to reconcile the results of his scientific researches with his Christian faith." And "the church wishes to honor the figure of Galileo—innovative genius and son of the church," with a number of initiatives this year.
But the statue is no longer one of them. According to Ravasi, the statue had been designed, and a mold had been made, but the Vatican asked the project's sponsor to divert the funds to projects in Nigeria and other places "to foster a better understanding of the relationship between science and religion." —Heather Wax

The Vatican has launched its own YouTube channel. For now, the site, which is updated daily, will feature Pope Benedict XVI as well as Vatican news items and events in short video and audio clips (in Italian, English, Spanish, and German). The channel is designed to help the Church expand its reach and to give the pope greater control over his Internet image and reputation, Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told the Associated Press. In his welcome message to viewers, the pope said he hoped the channel would be put to "the service of the truth."
In a separate message written for the Church's World Day of Communications on Saturday, the pope addressed what he sees as both the potential and pitfalls of digital technologies. Social networking sites (like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter) are a "gift to humanity," he said, because of their ability to foster friendship, connectedness, and understanding. "This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations," he continued. "The desire for connectedness and the instinct for communication that are so obvious in contemporary culture are best understood as modern manifestations of the basic and enduring propensity of humans to reach beyond themselves and to seek communion with others. In reality, when we open ourselves to others, we are fulfilling our deepest need and becoming more fully human."
But there's always the danger that these sorts of sites could isolate us from real-life relationships and further broaden the digital divide, he added. "It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," he said. "If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development." —Heather Wax

It looks like the Vatican is really pushing the transformation of Galileo's image—from a symbol of the conflict between science and religion to a symbol of their collaboration and compatibility. Over the weekend, according to the Associated Press, Pope Benedict XVI said that Galileo helped believers "contemplate with gratitude the Lord's work." (Back in June, the pope canceled a visit to La Sapienza, Rome's oldest and largest university, after students and academics protested his views on science and said they believed he condones the trial and conviction of Galileo for heresy.)
At a Vatican conference last month, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said Galileo was an astronomer who “lovingly cultivated his faith and his profound religious conviction," and Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture, told Vatican Radio that Galileo “could become for some the ideal patron for a dialogue between science and faith." —Heather Wax

"There is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," Pope Benedict told a group of scientists who visited the Vatican this week for a meeting on "Scientific Insights Into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life." The gathering was hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, told Vatican Radio that it was "a very interesting meeting, bringing together scientists and theologians to talk about truth—the truth that you can learn from science and the truth that you can learn from faith. In many people's minds, there's a potential conflict there. I think that's what we're explaining in this meeting: Are there conflicts, and if so, how can they be resolved?"
For Collins, "a scientist who's also a believer, I don't see these conflicts," he said, "but I can certainly understand how many people do." —Heather Wax

"One thing is sure. Evolution is not incompatible with faith," Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, said yesterday at a press conference to announce a large international meeting on evolution and the relationship between biological science and religion to be held in Rome in March. "Creationism from a strictly theological view makes sense," he said, "but when it is used in scientific fields it becomes useless."
Earlier this week, the Rev. Malcolm Brown, an Anglican cleric, made headlines for his remarks on evolution, saying that the Church of England owes Darwin an apology for the "wrong" way it first reacted to his theories and for misunderstanding him. While the church never officially condemned Darwin's theories, many senior officials were hostile—quite publicly—to the idea that humans evolved through natural selection rather than being created in their present form by God. "People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and churches are no exception," writes Brown, director of mission and public affairs for the church, in his essay "Good Religion Needs Good Science," which appears on a new section of the church's Web site devoted to Darwin. (The church calls Brown's essay a "personal view," not an official apology, though it says it generally agrees with his position.)
"Subsequent generations have built on Darwin’s work but have not significantly undermined his fundamental theory of natural selection. There is nothing here that contradicts Christian teaching. Jesus himself invited people to observe the world around them and to reason from what they saw to an understanding of the nature of God (Matthew 6: 25–33)," Brown says, adding that it "is hard to avoid the thought that the reaction against Darwin was largely based on what we would now call the 'yuk factor' (an emotional not an intellectual response) when he proposed a lineage from apes to humans."
Brown realizes his view "will remain contentious in some circles. Some Christian movements still make opposition to evolutionary theories a litmus test of faithfulness and—the other side of the coin—many believe Darwin’s theories to have fatally undermined religious belief and therefore reject any accommodation of one by the other," he says, but for "the sake of human integrity—and thus for the sake of good Christian living—some rapprochement between Darwin and Christian faith is essential." —Heather Wax

Genetic experimentation has been named one of the "new forms of social sin" by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, a high-ranking Vatican official. Girotto, who also included environmental pollution on his list, didn't just focus on science; he also included drug abuse and the hoarding of wealth as "new sins" in his interview with the Vatican City newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The interview has been widely reported as establishing a list of seven modern deadly sins, but members of the Catholic Church have called this media sensationalism, saying instead that the list outlines a series of new responsibilities. —Dan Messier

Seeking to fully redeem the legacy and image of Galileo, the Vatican will erect a statue in the astronomer's honor within the Vatican gardens. The statue will stand near the apartment where Galileo lived while awaiting trial on the charge of heresy, brought against him by the Catholic Church. During the 1633 trial, Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to recant his scientific view of heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun. Now, in the lead-up to the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope next year, the Vatican is seeking to make amends, not only with the statue, but also with a conference on the scientist and a review of his case at an institute in Florence. —Stephen Mapes

In an attempt to add its own voice to current bioethical debate, the Vatican is holding a conference on the origin and development of the human embryo from November 15 to 17 at Vatican City. The conference is being organized as part of Science, Theology and the Ontological Quest, a program designed to address the historical misunderstandings between science and religion. Organizers insist that the conference is intended to stimulate respect between the two sides and not necessarily a changing of beliefs. —Stephen Mapes