Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on November 12, 2005 12:15 AM
The Church does have the responsibility to denounce wrong ideas that intrude upon her sphere of competence, which includes matters of faith and morality. For example, the Church has no problem whatsoever with the advancement of any scientific theory that is consistent with scientific observations. One must remember, however, that although a scientific theory can be proved false, it can never be proved true. So anyone who proclaims---as Galileo did---that a scientific theory is actually a truth ends up making the same mistake that Galileo did. As the human understanding of political and expressive freedom has developed over time, we can see now that the Church erred in her suppression of Galileo's ideas. Still, Galileo was wrong about the nature of a scientific theory, and the Church was right to denounce his flawed exposition, even if she went too far in terms of disciplinary action. Also, the tribunal was wrong to associate Galileo's specific assertions about Copernicanism with heresy, for no ecumenical council and no papal ex cathedra statement has ever defined geocentrism as part of doctrine.
In today's world, a good example of the Church's responsibility to denounce wrong ideas has to do with evolution. The Church affirms that, as a scientific theory consistent with observational data, the evolution of the human body by natural selection is a real possibility. However, she denounces those who, going beyond what is merely scientific, would make the philosophical claim that the human person is merely a body (or that if the human soul exists, then it too is a product of evolution).
Moreover, the Church has always had (and continues to have) the responsibility to suppress wrong ideas that are proclaimed as though they were issued from and by her own authority. There are certain ideas that need to be believed in order for one rightly to call himself "Catholic". If one writes a book as if one were a Catholic authority, but one nevertheless in the book argues against those very ideas necessary for Catholicism, then the Church has the responsibility to suppress the book, at least to the extent of making sure that it is not published by an organ of the Church. Such suppression is right and good, for it forces us to call a thing a duck only if it really is a duck.
So far as the consistency between the principles of the free software movement and certain Catholic social principles is concerned, I tend to agree at least partially with the author of the above article. If the Church were interested in having the widest possible dissemination of her ideas, then distributing them under terms ensuring free redistribution and choosing open file formats for publishing are certainly points of compatibility. Further, if we identify from the general works of human enginuity those products that ought, for the sake of the common good, to be distributed as freely and widely as possible, then surely the Church's social teaching compels us to consider the terms by which those works are licensed.
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on November 12, 2005 12:15 AMIn today's world, a good example of the Church's responsibility to denounce wrong ideas has to do with evolution. The Church affirms that, as a scientific theory consistent with observational data, the evolution of the human body by natural selection is a real possibility. However, she denounces those who, going beyond what is merely scientific, would make the philosophical claim that the human person is merely a body (or that if the human soul exists, then it too is a product of evolution).
Moreover, the Church has always had (and continues to have) the responsibility to suppress wrong ideas that are proclaimed as though they were issued from and by her own authority. There are certain ideas that need to be believed in order for one rightly to call himself "Catholic". If one writes a book as if one were a Catholic authority, but one nevertheless in the book argues against those very ideas necessary for Catholicism, then the Church has the responsibility to suppress the book, at least to the extent of making sure that it is not published by an organ of the Church. Such suppression is right and good, for it forces us to call a thing a duck only if it really is a duck.
So far as the consistency between the principles of the free software movement and certain Catholic social principles is concerned, I tend to agree at least partially with the author of the above article. If the Church were interested in having the widest possible dissemination of her ideas, then distributing them under terms ensuring free redistribution and choosing open file formats for publishing are certainly points of compatibility. Further, if we identify from the general works of human enginuity those products that ought, for the sake of the common good, to be distributed as freely and widely as possible, then surely the Church's social teaching compels us to consider the terms by which those works are licensed.
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