It was a truly unforgettable night! There we all were in the TV lounge, watching those images arrive on the screen from so far away. We really couldn’t miss the occasion, particularly as we were lucky enough to have a television at the seminary, which in those days was almost a luxury. Even in black and white, the quality of the images was pretty good. It was remarkable to see Neil Armstrong’s footprints in the dust, with the announcer on Argentine TV giving a live translation of the English-language commentary from CBS, the US station in charge of the transmission. And of course there was the moment when the astronaut said the words, transmitted to us in Spanish, that have entered into history: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The excitement!
Some of the boys had already turned on the television by three in the afternoon, when the live broadcast began. It continued well into the small hours, an uninterrupted marathon from the early afternoon on. Suffice it to say that Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface a scant six hours after the landing, when it was nearly midnight in Argentina, and we were all there, holding our breath. Still, I had much to do that day, so I didn’t go into the lounge until ten, by which time we were very nearly at the moment of disembarkation. At the moment when Armstrong set foot on the moon and shortly after, when he and his fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag in the lunar soil, we sat open-mouthed and checked the clock, so as to remember the moment forever. It was so unbelievable!
In Argentina, the days leading up to this event had been marked by a furious row because a satellite fault had prevented us from following the launch of the Apollo 11 mission on July 16. So there was great anticipation that evening, but also a worry that the transmission might be interrupted at the crucial moment.
At the seminary, as elsewhere, there were of course a few killjoys who said provocative things during the broadcast like, “Don’t be taken in. This is all a lie, it was filmed in a studio.” We almost got into an argument about what technological progress was and was not capable of achieving. Fortunately, one of our supervisors quickly intervened to silence the ones who were doing the talking: the moment was too important to be ruined. That evening, though, I believe we all understood instinctively that the world would now be different somehow.
Progress is fundamental – we have to keep moving – but it must be in harmony with humankind’s ability to manage it. If it is not in harmony, and advances on its own, it turns into something inhuman that cannot be managed. The risk was present back then, and it is still there today – with artificial intelligence, for example, something that is more and more present in our lives but which, if used wrongly or in criminal ways, can be very dangerous. Consider the “fake news,” supported by fake evidence, that is skillfully created by these new technological tools. This cannot but stimulate fresh reflection and raise questions that have not previously been considered. We need an ethical approach to these new realities, and in fact I have spoken in the past about algorethics, a new field of study that considers the interaction of human beings and machines, to ensure that they always develop within the parameters of respect for the person.
Watching those images of men on the moon we felt awed, a community united in feeling small in the face of the enormity of what was happening. The same thing happens when we think about space: we are but a tiny droplet in the infinity of the universe. If one tomorrow we discover that there are other forms of life out there, it will only be because God has willed it. The existence and intelligibility of the universe are not the fruit of chaos or chance but of divine wisdom, present, as we read in chapter 8, verse 22, of the book of Proverbs, “at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.”
We must always persevere in our search for truth, accept new scientific discoveries with humility, and not repeat the mistakes of the past: by treading a path toward the boundaries of human knowledge it is possible to achieve a true experience of the Lord, who is in a position to fill our hearts.
The principles of the Church’s social doctrine are our beacon. They offer a decisive contribution: justice, dignity of the human, subsidiarity, solidarity. Harm follows, though, when new technological or scientific discoveries are bent to other purposes. Consider the use of new technologies in warfare, or the exploitation of new knowledge to create embryos in test tubes and then destroy them, leading to the practice of renting out uteruses, an inhuman practice that is more and more widespread, that threatens the dignity of both men and women and treats children like commodities.
We must always protect human life, from conception to death. I shall never tire of saying that abortion is murder, a criminal act: there is no other word for it. It involves discarding, eliminating a human life that is without fault. It is a defeat for anyone who carries it out and anyone who is complicit in it: mercenaries, killers for hire! No more abortions, please! It is vital that we defend and promote objections of grounds of conscience.
And how can we help women? By being at their side, by being welcoming, so that they don’t arrive at the drastic choice of abortion, which is certainly not the solution to their problems. We must make it understood that life is sacred, a gift we have received from God, and it mustn’t be thrown away just like that. As long as I have voice, I will shout this out loud. I’ve been doing so in my addresses and homilies since that far-off year of 1969, the year of my ordination as a priest and man’s landing on the moon.
Excerpted with permission from Life: My Story Through History, Pope Francis with Fabio Marchese Ragona, translated from the Italian by Aubrey Botsford, Harper One/HarperCollins Publishers.
