The Pope's Lynxes

The Sovereign Pontiff John XXIII has kindly deigned to call as members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences the following professors . . .

The latest list of scientists honored by the Vatican ranges across creeds and nations--from Nobel-prizewinning Physicist Sir James Chadwick, 70 (Church of England), to Hideki Yukawa, a Buddhist Nobelman from Japan.* Each man will receive a silver-gilt chain and medallion, and each will rate the Vatican title of excellency. From the Pope will come parchment proclamations addressing the Catholic scientists as "Dear Sir," the non-Catholics as "Famous Gentleman." And the varied salutations will be eloquent testimony to the Pontifical Academy's current catholicity of choice.

Earth & Sun. It was not always so. The academy likes to trace its lineage back three centuries to the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of Lynxes--named for an animal then believed to have especially keen eyesight), probably the world's oldest scientific society. But in those days, relations between the Papacy and science were far from cordial. The four young men who met in a Roman palace in 1603 to organize the accademia were taking a considerable chance. And trouble came quickly. In 1633, Galileo Galilei, most famous of the Lynxes, was picked up by the Inquisition and compelled to recant his heretical notion that the earth revolved around the sun. Galileo's condemnation broke the academy's spirit, and for more than a century it was hardly more than a library. In 1795, the academy was revived, only to be suppressed in 1840 by Pope Gregory XVI. In 1847, Pope Pius IX restored the old society, called it the Pontifical Academy of New Lynxes.

When Victor Emmanuel II ousted Pope Pius IX as temporal ruler of Rome, most Italian scientists formed themselves into the independent group that thrives today as the National Academy of Lynxes. In 1937, Pope Pius XI changed the name of the church's society to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and gave it his subtly qualified support. "Science which always wants to serve truth," he announced, "is the source of all good. Truth can deliver us from all evils."

Ballots & Miracles. At the time of its reorganization, the Pontifical Academy totaled 70 scientists from 18 nations; it included eight Protestants, one Jew and one Greek Orthodox. Now the members meet once every three years in an elegant little villa in the Vatican gardens, and the academy also holds "study weeks" to which it invites scientists from most of the world. Guests at these get-togethers may be frankly anticlerical, but the church seems not to care. Said one Vatican source last week: "It's as if the Pope said, 'I am a priest, so miracles are my business, but you are scientists, so I leave experimental science to you.' "

*The others: Ethnographer Antonio de Almeida, 61, Portugal (Roman Catholic); Chemist George de Hevesy, 75, born in Hungary, now living in Sweden (Roman Catholic); Physiologist Sir John Carew Eccles, 58, Australia (Roman Catholic); Geneticist Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, 71, England (Church of England); Chemist Giordano Giacomello, 71, Italy (Roman Catholic); Victor Francis Hess, 77, Austrian-born physicist who taught (1938-51) at New York's Fordham University (Roman Catholic); Chemist Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, 63, England (Church of England); Domenico Marotta, 74, director of the Superior Institute of Health, Rome (Roman Catholic). There are no Jews because, according to Academy Chancellor Pietro Salriucci, "there are just not enough eminent Jewish scientists."

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