Galileo, the Pope, and the Catholic Church

Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly whenever . . .

• maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter [the Pope], and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.
• This is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith.

Vatican II, Lumen Gentium

There were only a very small number of bishops who were members of the Holy Office (Inquisition). Therefore, they do not satisfy the requirements necessary for their declarations to be infallible.

The Roman Pontiff is not pronouncing judgment as a private person, but as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in whom the charism of infallibility of the Church itself is individually present, he is expounding or defending a doctrine of Catholic faith.

Vatican II, Lumen Gentium

The Pope never expounded or defended anything at all. It was the members of the Holy Office (Inquisition) who did so.

When the Roman Pontiff speaks Ex Cathedra, that is, when . . . he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses. . . infallibility.

Vatican I, Pastor aeternus

The Pope never made any statement at all, therefore, he never spoke Ex Cathedra or infallibly.

Many have wondered at this abjuration, and on account of it have denied to Galileo the title of martyr. But let such gainsayers consider the circumstances. Here was an old man - one who had reached the allotted threescore years and ten - broken with disappointments, worn out with labours and cares, dragged from Florence to Rome, with the threat from the Pope himself that if he delayed he should be "brought in chains"; sick in body and mind, given over to his oppressors by the Grand-Duke who ought to have protected him, and on his arrival in Rome threatened with torture.

Victory of the Church over Galileo

Torture is immoral.

A month later (June 21), by order of the Pope, he was given an examination of intention, a formal process that involved showing the accused the instruments of torture. At this proceeding, he said, "I am here to obey, and have not held this Copernican opinion after the determination made, as I said."

On June 22, 1633, the Inquisition held the final hearing on Galileo, who was then 69 years old and pleaded for mercy, pointing to his "regrettable state of physical unwellness". Threatening him with torture, imprisonment, and death on the stake, the show trial forced Galileo to "abjure, curse and detest" his work and to promise to denounce others who held his prior viewpoint. Galileo did everything the church requested him to do, following (insofar as there is any evidence) the plea bargain of two months earlier. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Although ten Cardinal Inquisitors had heard the case, the sentence carried out on June 22 bears the signature of only seven; one of the three missing was Cardinal Barberini, the Pope's nephew. It is generally held that this indicates a refusal to endorse the sentence. The seven who signed, however, were those who were present at that day's proceedings; Cardinals Barberini and Borgia in particular, were attending an audience with the Pope on that day. Analysis of the Inquisition's records has shown that the presence of only seven of ten Cardinals was not exceptional; hence the inference that Barberini was protesting the decision may be doubted.

That the threat of torture and death Galileo was facing was a real one had been proven by the church in the earlier trial against Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600 for holding a naturalistic view of the Universe.

Reference.com, Galileo Galilei

Torture is immoral.

Rowland makes much of the fact that Galileo was never under any serious threat of torture by the Inquisition - he argues that the threat was purely formal. He then constructs elaborate arguments based on Galileo's recantation of the Copernican hypothesis. However, he fails to emphasize that if Galileo had persisted in his position and refused to recant, he would have been convicted of heresy, and if he failed to abjure his "crimes", he would have been "handed over to the civil authorities to be burned, and in burning, purified." (p. 244) Are we supposed to believe that this eventual outcome of adherence to the Copernican hypothesis did not impact Galileo's conduct during the inquisitorial process? Apparently, being burned alive does not constitute torture if one is thus purified.

Amazon.com, Galileo's Mistake

Burning at the stake for holding a partially true scientific view is immoral. Torture is immoral.

The scientist [Galileo] was too ill to travel.

Galileo and the Aristotelian Cardinals

His trial was a death sentence.

Decree of the Congregation of the Index having been presented, in which were prohibited and suspended . . . the writings of Nicolaus Copernicus On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.

Inquisition, 1616

A book by Copernicus was forbidden. This document was not signed by the Pope.

Call Galileo before himself and warn him to abandon these opinions; and if he should refuse to obey, the Father Commissary, in the presence of a notary and witnesses, is to issue him an injunction to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it; and further, if he should not acquiesce, he is to be imprisoned.

Inquisition, 1616

Galileo was not merely forbidden to teach heliocentricism as a fact rather than as a theory. He was to abandon the idea altogether and if he didn't, he was not to teach or defend it, or even to discuss it upon threat of imprisonment. Imprisonment might have been a death sentence for Galileo at his advanced age. This document was not signed by the Pope.

Calvin's exegesis clearly demonstrates that he believed in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. "The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion. ... By what means could it [the earth] maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it?"

This interpretation is harder to reconcile with the Copernican system.

Only a brief sentence, mentioned almost in passing, states that the cause of the sun stopping was God temporarily ceasing the motion of the celestial sphere.

"We indeed are not ignorant, that the circuit of the heavens is finite, and that the earth, like a little globe, is placed in the center."

Calvin accepts the Ptolemaic system.

We have seen that Calvin was certainly not an adherent of the Copernican theory. He took for granted that the Ptolemaic system accurately described the physical construction of the universe. Yet he was not oblivious to the astronomical revolution which was occurring around him. However, he only spoke of it once that we know of, and then only to denounce it.

But though he did explicitly attack it in one instance, the Copernican theory was almost an innocent bystander in a battle taking place over an unrelated issue.

Religious Objections to Copernicus

Calvin believed an untruth.

From Luther's Tablebook ... "There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."

Religious Objections to Copernicus

Luther believed an untruth.

This partial acceptance of Copernicus' work was disseminated widely through Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) and his students at University of Wittenberg (thus often called the 'Wittenberg Interpretation'). Melanchthon, the Lutheran educational Reformer, incorporated into his textbook, Introduction to Physical Doctrine (Initia Doctrinae Physicae), Copernican values for the apogees of the sun and superior planets, but rejected his heliocentric claims.

Copernicus's Book

Melanchthon believed an untruth.

Luther is famed for his quote about the man "who wanted to prove that the earth moves and not the sky, sun and the moon." He calls him "that fellow ... who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down." Martin Luther, Table Talk, vol. 54 in the series Luther's Works, Fortress Press, 1981, No. 4638, pp. 359-259.

Calvin, Astronomical Revolution

Luther believed an untruth.

Proposition to be assessed: (1) The sun is the center of the world [universe] and completely devoid of local motion. Assessment: All said that this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and the doctors of theology.

1616, Report

They were correct. The sun is not the center of the universe and it does move. Galileo was wrong to claim this. This document was not signed by the Pope.

Galileo reasoned that the earth, as a giant vessel spinning on its axis, might cause the seas to rise and fall twice a day. . . . Now we know that that is . . . incorrect. . . . Although a link between the tides and the phases of the moon had been observed for centuries, Galileo rejected the idea.

PBS, Nova

Galileo was wrong. He claimed that the tides proved that the earth spun on its axis.

Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them. To this end they hurled various charges and published numerous writings filled with vain arguments, and they made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properly, and which were ill-suited to their purposes.

1615, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Galileo had an arrogant attitude. This entire long letter has a tone of arrogance.

Galileo's writing was sarcastic, cutting, dismissive and arrogant. The characters he developed in his dialogues engaged in hurtful satire which enraged his enemies and eventually offended his friend the pope.

Galileo and the Aristotelian Cardinals

It is true that Galileo's communication style was a factor in his troubles. But the church should be gracious and accept people's weaknesses.

it would be necessary to forbid men to look at the heavens, in order that they might not see Mars and Venus sometimes quite near the earth and sometimes very distant, the variation being so great that Venus is forty times and Mars sixty times as large at one time as at another. And it would be necessary to prevent Venus being seen round at one time and forked at another, with very thin horns; as well as many other sensory observations which can never be reconciled with the Ptolemaic system in any way, but are very strong arguments for the Copernican.

1615, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

His correct proof of heliocentric theory.

Contrary to the sense of the Bible and the intention of the holy Fathers . . . they would extend such authorities until even in purely physical matters - where faith is not involved - they would have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface meaning of its words this passage may contain a different sense. . . . The reason produced for condemning the opinion that the earth moves and the sun stands still in many places in the Bible one may read that the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the Bible cannot err; it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes a erroneous and heretical position who maintains that the sun is inherently motionless and the earth movable. . . . With regard to this argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify. Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might; fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands and eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of` things past and ignorance of those to come. . . . This being granted, I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense-experiences and necessary demonstrations; for the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. . . . From this I do not mean to infer that we need not have an extraordinary esteem for the passages of holy Scripture. On the contrary, having arrived at any certainties in physics, we ought to utilize these as the most appropriate aids in the true exposition of the Bible and in the investigation of those meanings which are necessarily contained therein, for these must be concordant with demonstrated truths.

1615, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

About the proper interpretation of scripture

The story of his heroic fight in the name of science against the intractable ignorance of the tyrannical Catholic church. The reality is not so starkly drawn; . . .

• Galileo's own arrogance created many enemies, and
• Rome's anxiety over its authority in the schismatic era of the Protestant reformation made their collision inevitable.

Galileo, Intro

Neither of these points nullifies the Catholic Church's errors.

The church did not accept Galileo's claim that the phases of Venus proved a Sun-centered universe.

PBS, Nova

The church was wrong in dismissing Galileo's interpretation of the phases of Venus. Galileo was wrong in claiming that the sun was the center of the universe.

The Pope and Galileo walked around in the Vatican gardens talking about various things, and of course one of the things they talked about was whether or not Galileo could publish on the Copernican theory. And the Pope told him that, as long as he limited himself to speaking about it hypothetically [as a theory], there would be no problem.

PBS, Nova

According to this report, the Pope merely wanted Galileo to treat the heliocentricism as a theory (the word hypothetically refers to a theory) rather than a fact.

Sagredo often has to explain what Salviati is saying to Simplicio because Salviati has a superior intellect. Simplicio is portrayed as "confused and perplexed." His thoughts are often reworded for him. In exchange after exchange, he is ridiculed but fails to see what is being done to him. . . . The ridicule of Simplicio continues. He is accused of "pretending" to be stupid. The condescension continues throughout. Phrases such as "Now try, if you can ..." and "I am giving you the very best that is in me."

Galileo and the Aristotelian Cardinals

Although it was common for writers of the day to be very sarcastic, it did not server Galileo's interests to write in this style. However, the church was not justified in judging him so harshly.

The Inquisition limited the trial to two simple questions of fact: Did the late Cardinal Bellarmine forbid Galileo to advocate Copernicus when the two faced each other 16 years earlier? And had Galileo violated the Cardinal's injunction by writing his Dialogue?

INQUISITOR: Let Galileo state what the most eminent Cardinal Bellarmine told him about the decision of the Holy Congregation of the Index on a certain day in the year sixteen hundred and sixteen.

GALILEO: The Lord Cardinal Bellarmine informed me that the opinion of the stability of the Sun and the motion of the Earth was deemed to be repugnant to Holy Scripture. I believe the Cardinal notified me that it was possible to hold the opinion hypothetically, as Copernicus did.

All who read the Dialogue could see that the defense of Copernicus was, by far, the stronger argument in the book. The character Simplicio, mouthing the words of Urban VIII, was really more satire than science. Galileo was forced into a position of false humility and humility was never his style.

PBS, Nova

In reading chapter 3 (day 3) of Galileo's book (see next quotes), I must disagree with the above assessment in several ways ...

• Simplicio was not mouthing the words of the Catholic Church, but of Aristotle and Ptolmy.
• Simplicio was not just a fool.
• Galileo's book was not satire but an honest presentation of the various arguments concerning heliocentricim.

Galileo's great admirer, the Pope, may not have actually read it [his book]. Instead, Urban VIII heard rumors, rumors that Galileo had put his words into the mouth of a fool, rumors that Galileo had not written a scientific discourse, but a literary satire . . . . He puts the words of the Pope in the mouth of the simpleton . . . . Urban's advisors persuaded him that he had been the model for Simplicio and that he was being made a fool.

PBS, Nova

As the next quotes show, Galileo does not treat Simplicito as a fool.

Statements by Simplicito in the chapter addressing astronomical aspects of the heliocentric view (chapter 3, day 3) ...

• Blame Neptune for my long delay. For in this morning's ebb he withdrew the waters in such a manner that the gondola in which I was riding, having entered an unlined canal not far from here, was left high and dry. I had to stay there over an hour awaiting the return of the tide.
• But the earth is at that center, as is proved in many ways by Aristotle, Ptolemy, and others.
• Gentlemen, please give me a chance to restore harmony to my mind, which I now find very much upset by certain matters which Salviati has just touched upon.
• I had no interest in reading those books, nor up till now have I put any faith in the newly introduced optical device. Instead, following in the footsteps of other Peripatetic philosophers of my group, I have considered as fallacies and deceptions of the lenses those things which other people have admired as stupendous achievements.
• If I must tell you frankly how it looks to me, these appear to me to me some of those geometrical subtleties which Aristotle reprehended in Plato when he accused him of departing from sound philosophy by too much study of geometry.

The Third Day, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

In my view, Galileo does not treat Simplicito as a fool. I have quoted several passages which reflect the worst on Simplicito and he comes out looking fine.

Galileo had believed that Pope Urban VIII would protect him from censure but the Pope had not.

DAVA SOBEL: Being the pope is different from being the cardinal. The Pope had many battles to fight, the most important being the Protestant Reformation. And there he was the head of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. And Urban was actually accused of not doing the right things to further the Catholic cause.

INGRID ROWLAND: The Pope maintained interest in what Galileo was doing, but the Pope, in many ways, had other concerns besides science. Urban VIII is facing the Thirty Years War-the entire reign is under the shadow of a terrible, vicious civil war that's tearing apart the Christian world.

DAVA SOBEL: So when Galileo came to trial the Pope could not risk defending his friend [Galileo] when he, personally, was under such scrutiny. And Galileo became expendable.

PBS, Nova

I think it is true that political factors stemming from the Protestant Reformation provide a backdrop for the Catholic Church's handling of the Galileo incident.

The Catholic Church long ago accepted the science of Galileo, but it was not until 1992 that a papal commission reconsidered its handling of the Galileo affair.

PBS, Nova

The Catholic Church is slow to address important issues.

ALBERT VAN HELDEN: John Paul II said that mistakes had been made in the Galileo case and used Galileo's language to talk about the relationship between faith and reason, between religion and science.

NARRATOR: Saying that faith should never conflict with reason, Pope John Paul II used the very words Galileo had once written in his own defense. The Pope, like Galileo, believed that the scriptures can never err, but theologians can err in their interpretation. The Pope expressed the church's regret that the Galileo affair had contributed to a "tragic mutual misunderstanding" between religion and science.

PBS, Nova

At least the Catholic Church of today has the correct view of science (although some would consider her views on contraception, abortion, stem-cell research, and homosexuality to be anti-scientific).

Read the text ...

The text, Two New Sciences

Galileo's scientific work during house arrest

Nicholas Copernicus; and that he was not only a Catholic, but a priest and a canon.

1615, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Copernicus a priest?

He [Nicholas Copernicus] was in fact so esteemed by the church that when the Lateran Council under Leo X took up the correction of the church calendar, Copernicus was called to Rome from the most remote parts of Germany to undertake its reform.

1615, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

The Church allowed scientific work. But later, the church condemned Copernicus' work.