Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said this week that he was a “huge fan” of Pope Francis but that the pontiff should stop buying into the global warming debate and, instead, “leave the science to the scientists.”Does Santorum not realize that the pope actually is "leaving science to the scientists" -- including the eighty credentialed members of the Vatican's own Pontifical Academy of Sciences, under whose aegis last year's statement on "Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility" was issued?
During a Monday interview with WPHT, host Dom Giordano noted that Pope Francis was expected to urge lawmakers to take action on climate change when he visits the U.S. later this year....
“The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists,” the candidate insisted.
As Christopher Dickey has written:
The academy, which in various forms dates back to the early 17th century, is today avowedly “non-sectarian” and includes among its 80 members many non-Catholics, non-Christians and, it is fair to say, some non-believers, not to mention some of the most famous scientists and social scientists in the world. Over the years, scores of the academy’s members have won Nobel Prizes, including the awards for chemistry, physics, medicine and economics.Here's part of the C.V. of the Academy's president:
How many folks like this are there on Santorum's staff? How many Nobelists?
I'm not a believer anymore, but I respect the Catholic Church's approach to science -- for example, while the church argues for divine creation, it unhesitatingly accepts evolution (unlike Santorum).
Christopher Dickey quotes the Academy's chancellor, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, as follows:
“If we don't accept science, we don't accept reason,” says Sánchez, “and reason was created by God."I wish Rick Santorum felt the same way.
