Pope Francis has praised the 17th century French mathematician, Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), for his “brilliant and inquisitive mind.”
This was in the Pope’s eight-page Apostolic Letter on June 19, 2023 to mark the 400th anniversary of Pascal’s birth in 1623. It is entitled: Sublimitas Et Miseria Hominis or The Grandeur and Misery of Man.
Pope Francis called Pascal, “A tireless seeker of the truth,” who “as a Christian, wishes to speak of Jesus Christ to those who have hastily concluded that there is no solid reason to believe in the truths of Christianity.”
“For his part, he knows from experience that the content of divine revelation is not only not opposed to the demands of reason, but offers the amazing response that no philosophy could ever attain on its own.”
The letter has a quotation from a small handwritten note called “Pascal’s Memorial,” which the scientist carried about and was found in his pocket when he died.
The note is from a mystical experience called “Night of Fire” which caused the philosopher to convert and cry on the night of November 23, 1654.
Pascal wrote: “Jesus Christ. I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified. Let me never be separated from him. He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel: renunciation, total and sweet.”
The Pope also quoted from Pascal’s work, the Pensées, published posthumously in 1670. Pascal was about to write an Apology to the Christian Religion, but died before being able to complete it.
In an oblique reference to Pascals’ seeming support for the Jansenists in their dispute with Jesuits, the Pope. the first Jesuit Pope, wrote that Pascal acknowledged that “several propositions considered ‘Jansenist’ were indeed contrary to the faith.”
In a press conference to present the Apostolic Letter, Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, called Pope Francis a “profound admirer” of Pascal.
He said Pope Francis’ letter praises Blaise Pascal: A perfect Catholic and child prodigy in mathematics who, at age 19, invented an arithmetic calculator, a forerunner of the modern day computer.
Blaise Pascal is also remembered for Pascal’s law of 1653 which states that when an object is immersed in a fluid, it experiences equal pressure on all surfaces.
He is also credited with Pascal’s triangle which is a simple way of solving binomial theorem in mathematics.
photo credit: vatican
