Faith and science in dialogue, book

Michele Raviart – Vatican City

“I am happy with his concern about God and Jesus,” writes the Pope Emeritus in a passage from the collection “On the way to the search for the truth”. The book brings together the letters and conversations of Piergiorgio Odifreddi, an atheist mathematician, with Benedict XVI, through five encounters that take place between the renunciation in 2013 and 2020.

A sign of attention to the dialogue between faith and science

Edited by Rizzoli and presented on October 6 at the Roman University of La Lumsa, the book is a journey between faith, science, ethics and anthropology, proof of the possibility of dialogue with positions at the antipodes, and a testimony of some of the themes that have occupied the reflections of the Pope emeritus since 2013. “It is extremely significant that Benedict XVI, when he ceased to be Pope and therefore had more time to reflect, took very seriously Odifreddi’s request to enter into dialogue with him. It is a sign of his attention to the dialogue between faith, reason and science, and of the very voluntary and open attitude with which he has always lived it.“, Father Federico Lombardi, president of the Ratzinger Foundation, co-organizer of the presentation of the book, told Radio Vatican-Vatican News.

The birth of a friendship

In 2011, Piergiorgio Odifreddi wrote an open letter to Benedict XVI in which he commented “The Christian faith yesterday and today», an introduction to Christianity written by Joseph Ratzinger in 1968, considered one of the major works of 20th century theology.

A missive remained unanswered until 2013 when, after his renunciation and through his secretary Bishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI in turn sent a letter, initiating a friendship between the two men. “A beautiful friendship”, “a rare thingbetween two different positions where “there is a dialogue and not bickering“, where “ideas meet and the adversary is not demonized”, says Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

“If even a Pope and an atheist can converse with friendship, it means that perhaps in life one can also behave like this». concludes Piergiorgio Odifreddi.

closeness in mourning

Over the epistolary correspondence, the subjects evolve. At first they were about science and faith, then gradually it became pointless to continue “skirmishes» on these themes, and other subjects have emerged, such as logic, life and death, says the mathematician, who was one of the honorary presidents of the Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics.

It is on the subject of death that their convergence is closest. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, Benedict XVI’s beloved brother, Georg Ratzinger, and Odifreddi’s mother both passed away. “It was our closest moment, when two people experience the same pain of losing loved ones.”assures Odifreddi.