An interesting read, taken from the book "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown. Spoken by the Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca.
Medicine, electronic communications, space travel,
genetic manipulation… these are the miracles about which we tell our children.
These are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the
answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and
parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won
the battle. We concede.
But science’s victory has cost every one of us. And
it has cost us deeply. Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and
drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and
convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have
been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe
have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human
beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its
inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident.
Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now
electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone.
We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture
and betrayal. Scepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has
become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more
depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does
science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn
fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s
world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning… and all it finds is
more questions.
The ancient war between science and religion is
over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing
answers. You have won by so radically reorientating our society that the truths
we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up.
Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new
breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years
to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into
space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of
control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left
behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void.
We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry
out. We see UFOs, engage in channelling, spirit contact, out-of-body
experiences, mindquests – all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer,
but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern
soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightment and its inability
to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.
Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has
destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the
relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with
benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist.
I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept.
Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and
chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species… moving down a path of
destruction.
Who is this God science? Who is this God who offers
his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What
kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The
language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science
textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no
chapter asking us if it is a good or bad idea.
To science I say this. The church is tired. We are
exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from
our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest
for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern
yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for
an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient
will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass
destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use
restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to
consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to
interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who
opens its doors and remind us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You
even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again,
it is the church who points out the fallacy of reasoning.
And all the while, you proclaim the church is
ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the
man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you.
Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away.
Show me proof there is a God you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the
heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God!
You ask what God looks like. I say, where did that
question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see your God
in science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change
in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our
universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies,
and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? Is it really so much easier to
believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we
become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical
impossibility than in a power greater than us?
Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe
this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we
abandon our sense of accountability. Faith… all faiths… are admonitions that
there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable.
With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher
truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world
could not see this church as I do… looking beyond the ritual of these walls…
they would see a modern miracle… a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls
wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.
Are we obsolete? Are these men dinosaurs? Am I? Does
the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn
child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their
lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of mortality and not lose our
way?
Tonight we are perched on a precipice. None of us
can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or
immorality… the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it.
The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to
your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca
Dan Brown, Angels and Demons, Ch. 94, Random House, UK, 2000.
