On Galileo, “conventional wisdom” is bunk
Church authorities erred in judging the 16th-century astronomer’s views. Now, if only today’ Catholic-bashers would deal with the facts of the case
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By Robert P. Lockwood
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It was one of the most dramatic moments in the history of science. It was 1633. And there was Galileo, bent and broken by the tortures of the Inquisition, retracting that which he knew to be true – that the earth orbits the sun and moves on its own axis. Blind religion had conquered science.
Yet, as he leaves the court for life imprisonment in the dungeons of the Inquisition, he musters on last moment of courage. The he promised never to teach again that the earth is anything but a motionless orb in space, he defiantly mutters aloud, “Eppur si muove!” (“And yet it does move!”) It would take 360 years – not until the 1990s – for the Church to apologize and admit that the astronomer had a point.
That’s the conventional wisdom on the trial of Galileo. And it is all bunk.
Galileo was never tortured and never spent a day locked in a prison cell. The famous quote attributed to him was invented by a writer 125 years later. And within 100 years of Galileo’s death on Jan. 8, 1642, well before science was capable of proving his theories, his published works received an imprimatur from the Church.
The critics’ trump card
For centuries, the 1633 trial of Galileo has served the anti-Catholic myth of the Church as the enemy of progress and science. Today, Galileo is an all-encompassing trump card played whether the discussion is over science, abortion, gay rights or legalized pornography. The reality of the events surrounding Galileo has vanished under a deluge of ideological propaganda. (For the very best popular work on Galileo see “Galileo’s Daughter,” by Dava Sobel, published by Walker & Company).
When it is claimed that it took 360 years for the Church to apologize and admit the astronomer had a point, the reference is to distorted news coverage of a pontifical academy’s report in October 1992. Pope John Paul II had asked the academy to study the Copernican-Ptolemaic controversy in the 16th and 17th century over the motion of the earth.
In its findings, the academy did not “admit the astronomer had a point,” as if this was a grudging acknowledgment by the Church in the last decade of the 20th century that the earth rotates and orbits the sun. The Church had long acknowledged that astronomical fact based on a theory first postulated in 1543 by Nicholas Copernicus, a Polish Catholic priest. In 1741, Pope Benedict XIV had granted an imprimatur to the first edition oft the complete works of Galileo, recognizing that his essential theory – and that of Copernicus – was an accurate reflection of nature.
The academy restudied the controversy in order to continue the conversation on the proper roles of faith and science. The academy properly concluded that in 1633, theologians “failed to grasp the profound, nonliteral meaning of the Scriptures when they describe the physical structure of the created universe. This led them to unduly transpose a question of factual observation into the realm of faith.”
Unprovable theory
In the 17th century, the world accepted what had been taught by Ptolemy since the second century: The earth was motionless, and the sun orbited it. Through mathematical examination, Copernicus came to believe that the sun is the center of our universe and the planets, earth included, revolved around it.
Galileo had forcefully argued for a Copernican understanding of the universe in “The Sunspot Letters” (1613). The difficulty was that the theory violated most scientific knowledge of the time. And there was no scientific means then capable of proving the theory. That would be the nub of his problem. His views appeared to contradict Scripture, where the Psalmist spoke of a fixed earth and Joshua made the sun stand still; and there was no scientific technology that could prove him right.
Three years later, Pope Paul V asked his theologians to look into the matter. His leading theologian, the Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, personally believed the Copernican theory was not viable, but that it could be presented as a theory. He also understood that, if it could be proven, it would be necessary to reinterpret certain scriptural passages. It was a vital point that would be forgotten in the trial of 1633.
In February 1616, a papal council of theologians issued an edict that it was quite possibly heresy – without ever using the word – to teach as fact that the sun was at the center of the universe. They also judged it contrary to scientific understanding. No charges were leveled against Galileo, and his name was never raised in the formal edict.
Cardinal Bellarmine, however, told Galileo to present the issue as theory rather than scientific fact. Galileo, who believed that heresy was more abhorrent that death itself, agreed.
In 1623, Pope Urban VIII assumed the papacy. He believed the Copernican doctrine could never be proven, but he was willing to let Galileo discuss it as hypothesis. Galileo was encouraged and would proceed over the years to write a "Dialogue" on the Copernican theory.
When it was finally published in 1632, a storm of controversy erupted. Despite his protests to the contrary, Galileo had forcefully presented the Copernican theory as fact. It enraged other scientists of the day for its outright ridicule of their Ptolemaic views. His critics within the Church charged that Galileo was attacking the veracity of Scripture as well as openly challenging a Church edict to which he had earlier agreed.
Comfortable "arrest"
By Galileo's trial the next year, Cardinal Bellarmine had been dead 12 years. A document was pulled from the 1616 study that directly ordered Galileo to cease discussing the Copernican theory altogether. This was a much stronger order than had been conveyed to him in person and by letter from Cardinal Bellarmine. Had Galileo ever seen such an order? He claimed he had not. But the judges then believed Galileo chose to ignore the order.
Galileo was condemned for defying the 1616 edict, though only seven of the 10 cardinals who served as final judges signed the condemnation. The finding against Galileo was hardly infallible. This was disciplinary action, not doctrinal definition. But the ultimate mistakes made in the trial were by tribunal judges who erroneously believed that the universe revolved around a motionless earth, and that the Bible confirmed such a belief.
For punishment, he was confined to a moderate house arrest that included living for a time in the home of the archbishop of Siena. Galileo lived comfortably for the rest of his life, nine more years, dying in 1642.
The condemnation of Galileo was unjust, Galileo was a loyal son of the Church and a pioneer in science who suffered for both. The Church has acknowledged those hard facts.
However, the trial of Galileo was not as it is usually portrayed.
Galileo and the tribunal judges shared a common view that science and the Bible could not stand in contradiction. As clearly understood by Cardinal Bellarmine, if there appeared to be a contradiction, such a contradiction resulted from either weak science, or poor interpretation of Scripture. In Galileo's case, he did not yet have the science to prove his theories, and his judges had a wrong interpretation of Scripture.
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Lockwood is research director for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. For an in-depth treatment of the Galileo controversy, visit the website of the Catholic League at www.CatholcLeague.org
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