Читать книгу The Notebook - José Saramago - Страница 12

A piece of good news, naïve readers would say, assuming that after so many disappointments there could still be any good news out there. The Anglican Church, the British version of Catholicism established in the time of Henry VIII and the official religion of the kingdom, has announced an important decision: they are apologizing to Charles Darwin, on the bicentenary of his birth, for how badly they treated him following the publication of The Origin of Species, and how much worse after The Descent of Man. I have nothing against all these apologies that seem to be cropping up almost every day for one reason or other, other than to question how useful they are. Even if Darwin were still alive and inclined to be magnanimous, saying, “Yes, I forgive you,” those generous words could not erase a single insult, a single calumny, a single one of the many contemptuous remarks that were thrown at him. The only institution to benefit from this apology will be the Anglican Church, which will see its store of goodwill increased at no expense. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for a repentance, however belated, that might perhaps prompt Benedict XVI—currently engaged in a diplomatic maneuver in relation to secularism—to ask forgiveness of Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno, especially the latter, who was tortured in the Christian manner, most charitably, right up until the moment when he was burned on the bonfire.

This apology by the Anglicans won’t please North American creationists one bit. They will feign indifference, but quite clearly this goes against their plans. And against those of the Republicans, who, like their vice-presidential candidate, have raised the flag of that pseudoscientific aberration that goes by the name of creationism.