Galileo

Overview ...

This article provides a defense of the Catholic Church's involvement in the Galileo incident. The quotations are from a secular textbook and therefore do not express a Catholic bias

Protestants who are critical of Catholicism typically use Galileo incident to demonstrate that ...

1. the Catholic Church is opposed to scientific knowledge
2. the Bible is full of scientific errors

These assertions are not true.

Read a more detailed analysis.

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Galileo Galilei ...

The Galileo incident is not simply a case of the Catholic Church's rejection of scientific truth.

For centuries it was interpreted as exemplifying the forces of religion smothering scientific knowledge. More recent research has modified that picture. (The Western Heritage, pg. 469)

As an interesting bit of irony, the Protestant Reformation had a role in the conflict. This is significant because Protestants often use the Galileo case to "prove" that it is the Catholic Church which teaches erroneous doctrine, not the Protestants.

The condemnation of Copernicanism and of Galileo occurred at a particularly difficult moment in the history of the Catholic Church. In response to Protestant emphasis on private interpretation of scripture. . . The Catholic Church, . . . had difficulty moving beyond a literal reading of the Bible for fear of being accused by the Protestants of abandoning scripture. (The Western Heritage, pg. 469)

Pope John Paul II has recently apologized for the Catholic Church's handling of the Galileo affair:

In 1992 the Catholic Church admitted that errors had occurred, most particularly in the biblical interpretation of Pope Urban VIII's advisors. (The Western Heritage, pg. 469)

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References ...

Kagan, Donald; Ozment, Steven; Turner, Frank M. (2001). The Western Heritage (7th ed.). Prentice-Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ

A textbook on Western Civilization.

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