A planned visit by Pope Benedict to Rome's most prestigious university has sparked protests from scientists there who are offended by his position on Galileo.
In a letter to the university's rector, 67 lecturers and professors said it would be ''incongruous'' for the pontiff to open the academic year at the La Sapienza university on January 17 and called for his visit to be cancelled.
The letter highlighted Benedict's remark, when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that the Catholic Church's 17th century trial of great Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was ''reasonable and just''.
Galileo, who went against contemporary thinking by saying the earth revolved around the sun, was found guilty of heresy in 1633. He was forced to renounce his scientific findings publicly.
La Sapienza physics professor Andrea Frova, author of a book about Galileo, and other angry La Sapienza scientists say the Church still tries to control or influence scientific progress today.
Referring to Benedict's Galileo remark and the pope's imminent appearance at the university, their letter said: ''These words offend and humiliate us. In the name of the secular nature of science and out of respect for our university, which is open to people of all creeds, we hope that this incongruous event can be cancelled.''
In a separate initiative students at La Sapienza have organised four days of protests against the pope's visit. The first day on Monday revolved around an ''anti-clerical'' meal of bread, pork and wine and a banner reading: ''Knowledge needs neither fathers nor priests''.
Meanwhile, a poster bearing the message ''Knowledge is secular'' has appeared outside the university under the statue of Minerva which is its symbol.
So far La Sapienza's rector has not replied to the demands for the papal visit to be scratched. But the official programme has reportedly been changed so that Benedict will give a normal speech as opposed to the keynote 'lecture' that is normally the centrepiece of the ceremony.
Reporting the protests to its listeners on Monday, Vatican Radio referred to initiatives which it said had a ''censorious tone''. It sarcastically described the physicists' request as a ''tolerant appeal''.
The radio network, which transmits in dozens of languages, also interviewed a La Sapienza lecturer in genetics who called the protests ''disgraceful''.
Meanwhile, there was criticism from the Italian political arena also, especially from Catholic-oriented parties. ''The hullaballoo organised at La Sapienza smacks of intolerance and discrimination,'' said Udeur's Francesco Borgomeo.
Rome's deputy mayor, Maria Pia Garavaglia, slammed the anti-pope initiative as ''paradoxical'', adding: ''It seems in clear contradiction of intellectual freedom''.
