Sondaggi politici, elettorali, sondaggi d'opinione. Il sondaggio politico elettorale che fa opinione

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scritto da a, gennaio 20, 2008

vi affannate tanto a difendere la libertà di parola di quel vecchio p******** e poi neppure capite quel che dice...

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scritto da francescof, gennaio 16, 2008

Come si vede il sig. Doulas Adams non è abbastanza informato, o non sa leggere.

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scritto da francescof, gennaio 16, 2008

Ed ecco il Los Angeles Times. Bastano questi esempi?
Los Angeles Times
Pope to cancel speech
The pontiff's planned appearance at Rome's prestigious La Sapienza university is called off after students and professors object.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 16, 2008
ROME -- It's a big deal when the pope agrees to speak at an event that isn't church-related.It's an even bigger deal when public protest forces him to cancel.
Veteran Vatican-watchers said they'd never seen anything quite like it. Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday abruptly called off plans to speak at Rome's prestigious La Sapienza university, after students and professors rallied to proclaim him pontiff non grata.
More than 60 professors signed a letter to the public school's rector saying the pope's appearance, which had been scheduled for the opening of the academic year Thursday, was an affront to people of science and to the "secular" nature of the institution.
Students staged a sit-in Tuesday, waving banners with angry slogans ("Knowledge needs neither fathers nor priests") and launching what they dubbed "anti-cleric week."
"This pope unfortunately is not particularly friendly to science," physics professor Andrea Frova, one of the La Sapienza academics who signed the petition, said in an interview.
Frova and the others said they were offended by a comment made by the pope 17 years ago, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that called the heresy trial of 17th century astronomer Galileo "reasonable." (In fact, Ratzinger was quoting another philosopher in that passage, part of a long speech on the Roman Catholic Church and Europe.)
The issue goes beyond Galileo, Frova said, and to the church's position today on stem cell research, evolution and genetic engineering.
"History changes; the scientific problems are different today than in the time of Galileo, but the attitudes of the church stay the same," he said.
The pope would be welcome at the university to debate these issues, Frova said, but not to deliver a speech in which there would be no opportunity for discussion or response.
Given the incidents of the last few days, a brief Vatican press statement said, "it was considered opportune" to scrap the event.
Is the pope hostile toward science? Benedict is a strong intellectual who has emphasized the importance of reason in the practice of faith. Yet he also says evolution is the work of a divine creator, and helped defeat Italian laws that liberalized scientifically assisted fertility.
Italy lives in the shadow of the Vatican, and mainstream politicians rarely challenge or criticize the pope. Officials in both the government and the opposition were quick to lament the protests that waylaid Benedict.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi expressed "solidarity" with the pope and condemned the "unacceptable attitudes of intolerance."
The left-wing minister for family policy, Rosy Bindi, who has clashed with the church on reproductive health and similar issues, said she was "very saddened" by the episode. "This is not a pretty day for our democratic republic," she said.
"You don't have to agree with what he says, but the right to speak must not be denied to anyone," Universities Minister Fabio Mussi said, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.
Pier Ferdinando Casini, head of a main Christian Democratic party, said that with professors like this, "we must fear for the future of our children."
The students who led the protests celebrated their "victory for laicism," whereas the rector of La Sapienza, Renato Guarini, said he was dismayed that a "small publicity-seeking minority" had managed to derail a papal visit to an institution founded, as it happens, by one of Benedict's predecessors, Pope Boniface VIII -- 700 years ago.

wilkinson@latimes.com

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scritto da francescof, gennaio 16, 2008


Ecco il Guardian di Londra
Pope pulls out of visit to Rome university after outrage at his views on Galileo and science


• Government divided on protest over 1990 speech
• Row over letter signed by more than 60 teachers

John Hooper in Rome
Wednesday January 16, 2008
The Guardian


A student wears a mock mask of Pope Benedict XVI as he protests at La Sapienza university in Rome. Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP

Pope Benedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome's main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo.
The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The Pope had been due to speak tomorrow during ceremonies marking the start of the academic year at Rome's largest and oldest university, La Sapienza. But the Vatican said last night it had been "considered opportune to postpone" his visit.
The announcement followed a break-in and sit-in at the rector's office yesterday by about 50 students and a furious row over a letter signed by more than 60 of La Sapienza's teachers, asking that the invitation to the Pope be rescinded.
The signatories of the letter said Benedict's presence would be "incongruous". They cited a speech he made at La Sapienza in 1990, while he was still a cardinal, in which he quoted the judgment of an Austrian philosopher of science who wrote that the church's trial of Galileo was "reasonable and fair".
The letter said: "These words offend and humiliate us." Among the signatories was the physicist Prof Luciano Maiani, who was recently appointed to head Italy's main scientific research body, the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche.
Maiani said he had later dropped his opposition to the visit after learning that the Pope would not be making the keynote address. But the daily La Stampa reported that a number of foreign scientists had since added their names to the initiative.
One students' group declared an "anti-clerical week" to protest at the Pope's presence. Among numerous banners and placards put up around the campus, there was one that read: "Galileo recanted. We shall hold out against the papacy."
The Pope is known for his deeply conservative outlook and the controversy is the latest in a string of rows since his election three years ago. He upset Muslims with another quotation in an academic lecture, on that occasion from a medieval Byzantine emperor.
He has since been criticised by Latin Americans for his views on the colonisation of their continent and by Protestants for saying their denominations ought not to be considered as churches.
The newspaper Il Giornale, which republished his 1990 speech, said the Pope had "expressed a different position" from that of the Austrian scholar Paul Feyerabend, "absolutely not adopting it as his own". The Vatican's own daily, L'Osservatore Romano, carried an article by the Jewish mathematician Giorgio Israel, in which he wrote that the Pope's address "could well be considered, by anyone who read it with a minimum of attention, as a defence of Galilean rationality against the scepticism and relativism of postmodern culture".
Speaking before last night's announcement, Italy's deputy prime minister, Francesco Rutelli, said: "The attempt to silence [Benedict] in a place that is a forum for study, teaching and dialogue ... seems inconceivable." He noted that a pope had founded La Sapienza in 1303.
However, the trade minister, Emma Bonino, said the Pope already "held the floor morning and night".
Rightwing opposition MPs were outraged. One suggested La Sapienza, which means "wisdom" or "learning" ought now to be renamed La Ignoranza
Backstory
• Galileo Galilei was the Inquisition's most high profile victim. But by recanting his view that the earth moved around the sun, he managed to pay for his defiance of Catholic teaching, not with his life, but his freedom.
• Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo was a polymathic genius - a physicist, astronomer and mathematician who improved both the refracting telescope and compound microscope
• After ridiculing the views of the then Pope Urban VIII in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was ordered to stand trial for heresy in 1633. The judgment found that his view of the solar system was "absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures".
• He spent the rest of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition and died in 1642. It was not until 1835 that his Dialogue was dropped from the Index of banned books. John Hooper

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scritto da francescof, gennaio 16, 2008

Ecco qualche altro esempio di stampa internazionale:

Liberation
L’histoire
Benoît XVI annule sa visite à la Sorbonne italienne
É.J. (à Rome)
QUOTIDIEN : mercredi 16 janvier 2008
11 réactions
Fait sans précédent depuis le début de son pontificat, en avril 2005, Benoît XVI a dû annuler une visite prévue jeudi à l’université de Rome, la Sapienza (la Sorbonne italienne). C’est un vieux scientifique qui a sonné l’alarme, rejoint ensuite par une partie du monde universitaire. Le très conservateur Joseph Ratzinger avait été invité par le recteur à participer à l’inauguration de la 705e année académique. Mais dès novembre dernier, le physicien spécialiste des particules élémentaires, Marcello Cini, 84 ans, a pris la plume pour s’indigner de «l’incroyable violation de la tradition d’autonomie des universités». Il s’en est d’abord pris au discours de Benoît XVI à Ratisbonne puis à la volonté du pape de «reconduire la science sous la pseudo-rationalité des dogmes de la religion». Depuis, une soixantaine de professeurs, soutenus par de nombreux étudiants, lui ont emboîté le pas, reprochant à l’ancien «grand inquisiteur» Ratzinger d’avoir estimé que le procès contre Galilée était «raisonnable et juste».

Le monde
Le pape renonce à une prise de parole contestée dans une université de Rome
LE MONDE | 16.01.08 | 14h10 • Mis à jour le 16.01.08 | 14h10
ROME CORRESPONDANT


Benoît XVI a annulé la visite qu'il devait effectuer, jeudi 17 janvier, dans la plus grande université de Rome. A l'invitation du recteur de la Sapienza, qui compte environ 150 000 étudiants, le pape devait prendre la parole à l'occasion de l'ouverture de l'année académique. Mais sa venue, jugée "incongrue" par une pétition signée par 67 professeurs (sur 5 000) au nom de "la laïcité de la science", avait déclenché depuis plusieurs jours une forte polémique au sein de l'université. Les étudiants contestataires ayant finalement obtenu le droit de manifester jeudi dans l'enceinte de l'établissement, le Vatican "a jugé opportun de surseoir à l'événement". Les opposants reprochent à Joseph Ratzinger un discours prononcé en 1990, quand il était cardinal, sur le bien-fondé du procès fait par l'Eglise à Galilée. La décision de Benoît XVI de renoncer à venir a provoqué la consternation des autorités italiennes. Le chef du gouvernement, Romano Prodi, a "condamné les déclarations et les comportements qui ont créé une tension inacceptable", tandis que le président de la République a écrit personnellement au pape. Dans cette même université, en 1991, Jean-Paul II avait déjà été sérieusement sifflé et chahuté.
Jean-Jacques Bozonnet
Article paru dans l'édition du 17.01.08.

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scritto da francescof, gennaio 16, 2008

Ecco qui il primo pezzo sul New York Times
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World All NYT
Pope Cancels Speech After Protest at University
By IAN FISHER
Published: January 16, 2008
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI, in a rare papal acquiescence to protest, has canceled a speech at the prestigious Sapienza University here amid opposition by professors and students who say he is hostile to science.

“Following the well-known events of recent days,” said a Vatican statement released Tuesday, “it seems opportune to delay the event.” The statement said that a text of the speech, which was to have been given on Thursday, would still be sent to the university.

Dozens of students staging a sit-in at the university, where banners have been hung urging Benedict to stay away, cheered after the statement was released.

But the decision also provoked anger about intimidation and censorship, stirring Italy’s always sensitive relations between its religious and secular traditions. Renato Guarini, the university’s rector, told reporters that the cancellation was “a defeat for the freedom of expression.”

Prime Minister Romano Prodi, one of many politicians who condemned the decision, said, “No voice should be stifled in our country, least of all the pope’s.”

The pope’s speech at the university, which was founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and is now public, was to mark the start of the academic year. But professors and students objected, citing specifically a speech that Benedict gave in 1990, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, on Galileo, condemned by the Inquisition in the early 1600s for arguing that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

In that speech, Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005, quoted the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend as saying: “The church at the time was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just.”

In the speech, Cardinal Ratzinger did not argue against the validity of science generally or take the church’s position from Galileo’s time that heliocentrism was heretical. But he asserted, as he has often since elected pope, that science should not close off religion and that science has been used in destructive ways.

Marcello Cini, a prominent physicist at the university who led the protest, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying he was “satisfied” at the cancellation. “I thought, and I continue to think, that his visit was ambiguous and an attack on the independence of culture and the university,” he said.

Papal appearances are rarely canceled, and usually for reasons of security or illness. In 1991, Pope John Paul II also faced small protests in his only visit to La Sapienza.