Munich

Catholic researchers and bioethicists have responded to the death of Pope John Paul II with tributes to his efforts to achieve reconciliation between faith and science. And some are optimistic that his successor will keep on the same path.

The Polish Pope had a strong personal interest in science and worked to reduce hostility between the scientific community and the Roman Catholic Church. Nonetheless, his strict rejection of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and contraception, including the distribution of condoms to help contain AIDS, drew him into conflict with some scientists.

AIDS activist groups around the world still condemn John Paul's refusal to endorse the use of condoms. “It should not be forgotten that millions have died in Africa as a result of this theological rigidity,” the London-based Independent newspaper said in an editorial.

However, John Paul frequently discussed scientific matters with such luminaries as Stephen Hawking, who is one of the 80 members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. And the Vatican received regular scientific advice (see Nature 432, 666; 2004).

“Many of us have witnessed a special feeling between the Pope and scientists,” says Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, a theologian and astrophysicist at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

In 1980 at Cologne Cathedral, Germany, John Paul declared that there was “no contradiction” between faith and science. He said on several occasions that the concepts of the Big Bang and darwinian evolution were more than mere hypotheses. In 1992, he officially rehabilitated Galileo Galilei, conceding that the Church was wrong to arrest him.

More recently, the Vatican has stopped opposing modern techniques such as organ transplantation and genetic modification of animals.

Ludger Honnefelder, a Catholic theologian and philosopher at the Institute of Science and Ethics in Bonn, Germany, claims that John Paul helped religion and science to coexist. He notes that the next Pope will have to deal with issues such as the implications of genetic modification in humans. “We expect well-balanced answers from the Church to new ethical challenges,” Honnefelder says, “just as we expect science not to think of itself as an almighty system.”