page 22 L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO Wednesday, 24 August 2011, number 34

The Jesuit who invented computer language and planned the monumental ‘Index Thomisticus’ Stop, reader! Fr Busa is dead

If you surf on the Internet or use a PC to write an emails, it is thanks to him. If you can read this article, you owe it to him

Fr Roberto Busa, SJ, died on Tuesday, “Stop, Reader! Fleming is dead; per- compare them 9 August 2011 at the age of 97. He haps you too owe your life to him”, with other was a pioneer in computer linguistics. was the headline splashed across the s o u rc e s . The following is a translation of ex- front page of a Milanese evening pa- On a trip to cerpts from an obituary written in the per. Today the same invitation could the United Italian daily of our newspaper. be addressed to all those sitting in States Fr Busa front of their computers at this mo- asked to meet ment. Thomas Wat- ST E FA N O LORENZETTO Were technological holiness to ex- son, founder of ist, I think I could say that I had That a journalist should be given an IBM. The mag- the privilege of meeting it: it was appointment in Heaven rarely — ac- nate received personified by Fr Busa. Therefore, tually, never — happens at the end him in his New Reader, go down on your knees in York office. of an interview. Yet it happened to front of the mortal remains of this me last 28 September. “What do Listening to elderly priest, linguist, philosopher the Italian you think Heaven is like?” was the and computer expert. If you surf on priest’s request, last question I asked Fr Roberto the Internet, it is thanks to him. If Watson shook Busa, the Jesuit who invented com- you jump from one site to another, his head, “It is puter language. “Like the heart of clicking on links highlighted in blue, impossible to God, immense”, he replied. Then he it is thanks to him. If you use a PC Rome, 1973 added, “Listen, I’ll be waiting for to write emails and documents, it is make a ma- you too in Heaven, don't let me thanks to him. And if you can read chine do what down!”, and turning to Maurizio this article, it is thanks to him. you are asking. You claim to be expert in linguistics and computer The computer more American than we are!”. science, has attested backed by doc- originally came Fr Busa then drew from his pock- umentation, Fr Busa really did work into being solely et a business card he picked up with on hypertext at least 15 years before in order to cal- the multinational’s slogan, coined by Nelson. Th i n k culate — to com- the boss: “ ”; followed by: Between Pisa and Boulder, Color- “What's difficult we can do straight pute, hence its ado and Venice, the Jesuit gave life away, the impossible takes a little name: computer. to a titanic effort that lasted almost longer”. He handed it to Watson But Fr Busa half a century, investing 1,800,000 with a disappointed shrug. breathed into it hours, roughly what it would take Busa had touched a raw nerve the gift of one man who worked regular trade and the President of IBM re t o r t e d words. this union hours for 1,000 years. Today “Ok, Father. We’ll try, but on one the results are available on CD-ROM happened in condition. Promise me that you 1949. This Jesuit and paper, in 56 volumes for a total won’t change the name of IBM, In- of 70,000 pages. From the first was keen to ana- ternational Business Machines, into lyse the com- volume, published in 1951, Busa International Busa Machines!” catalogued every single word in the plete works of St This challenge between two geni- Thomas Aqui- 118 books by St Thomas and in 61 uses resulted in hypertext — the by other authors. nas: one and a overall structure of pieces of inform- half million Roberto Busa was the second of New York, 1956 ation linked to each other by dy- the five children of a station master. lines, nine mil- namic connections that may be con- “We would move from one city to lion words (com- sulted on a computer at the click of the next: Genoa, Bolzano, Verona”, Don, the photographer, he said: pared to the mere 100,000 of the Di- a mouse. he told me. “In 1928 we arrived in “And you as well. And if, as I hope, vine Comedy). He had already com- The term “hyp ertext”was coined Belluno and I entered the seminary. you delay coming, you will find me piled 10,000 index cards by hand by Ted Nelson, in 1965, to hypothes- Albino Luciani was in my class”. sitting by the gates, like this”. He just for the inventory of the preposi- izesoftwarethat wasabletomemor- Busa entered the Society of Jesus clasped his hands and began twid- tion “in”, which he considered im- ize the history of a user’s actions. dling his thumbs: “Are those guys in 1933. He was ordained a priest on portant from a philosophical view- However, as the author of L i t e ra r y 30 May 1940. ever going to arrive?”. point. He had looked, unsuccess- Ma c h i n e s admits, the idea was older Since 10:00 p.m., Tuesday, 9 Au- In his long life he was acquainted fully, for a way to connect single than the invention of the computer. with seven Popes. He had particu- gust, Fr Busa has been waiting for fragments of Aquinas’ thought to Moreover as Antonio Zoppetti, an us at those gates. “No hurry”, he larly cordial relations with Paul VI, would be saying, with his Venetian and of course, with his friend John a f f a b i l i t y. Paul I, “who envied me”, he said, Roberto Busa was born in Vi- “because I had become a Jesuit and cenza to parents originally from Lus- he hadn’t”. Like John Paul I,his iana, on the high plateau of Asiago, dreams of becoming a missionary and, to be precise, in the Busa dis- never came true. Instead the Provin- trict from which they took their cial Superior asked me pointblank: name. “Would you like to be a professor?”. The eminent scholar who com- “No”, I answered and the Superior piled the Index Thomisticus died of replied, “Excellent. You will be one old age at the Aloisianum, the Insti- nevertheless”. And I was sent to the tute at Gallarate, Varese. He had Gregorian to study “for a lectureship lived there since the 1960s, together in philosophy on St Thomas Acqui- with the great doyens of the Society nas”. of Jesus, including Cardinal Carlo Fr Busa had clear ideas about the Maria Martini, a friend with whom origins of computer science: “A he conversed frequently. mind that knows how to write pro- For many years Busa was a pro- grammes is certainly intelligent. But fessor at the Pontifical Gregorian a mind that knows how to write pro- University and at the Catholic Uni- grammes which writes other pro- versity, as well as, from 1995 to 2000, grammes is ranked at a superior at the Polytechnic in Milan, where level of intelligence. The cosmos is he gave courses on artificial intelli- not a giant computer. The program- gence and robotics. His research led mer is neither the author nor produ- to the creation of the Roberto Busa cer. We call God Mystery because in Award, the highest honour in the the circuits of daily bustle we cannot sector. He would have been 98 years meet him. But the Gospels assure us old on 28 November. that 2,000 years ago he came down When Alexander Fleming, who On 14 July 1976 Fr Busa presents the “Index Thomisticus” to Paul VI, on the left Mons. Pasquale from Heaven”. discovered penicillin, died in 1955, Macchi and Cardinal Albino Luciani, who was Roberto Busa's room mate in the se m i n a r y. Fr Busa went to meet him.