Galileo’s Clash With the Church

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN ITALY

IT IS June 22, 1633. An unsteady old man is on his knees before the court of the Roman Inquisition. He is a man of science, one of the best known of the day. His scientific convictions are based on long years of study and research. Yet, if he wants to save his life, he must renounce what he knows to be true.

His name was Galileo Galilei. The Galileo case, as many call it, has raised doubts, questions, and controversy that still echo today, some 370 years later. The case has left an indelible mark on the history of religion and science. Why so much fuss? Why has the Galileo case made news again in our modern era? Does it really symbolize a “fracture between science and religion,” as one writer termed it?

A prolonged confrontation with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, however, turned the career of this illustrious scientist into a drama​—the Galileo case. How did it begin, and why?

Conflict With Rome

As early as the end of the 16th century, Galileo embraced the Copernican theory, which states that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa. This is also called the heliocentric (sun-centered) system. After using his telescope in 1610 to discover celestial bodies that had never before been observed, Galileo became convinced that he had found confirmation of the heliocentric system.

According to the Grande Dizionario Enciclopedico UTET, Galileo wanted to do more than just make such discoveries. He wanted to convince “the highest-ranking personages of the day (princes and cardinals)” that the Copernican theory was true. He cherished the hope that with the help of influential friends, he could overcome the church’s objections and even win its support.

In 1611, Galileo traveled to Rome, where he met high-ranking clergymen. He used his telescope to show them his astronomical discoveries. But things did not turn out as he had hoped. By 1616, Galileo found himself under official scrutiny.

Theologians of the Roman Inquisition labeled the heliocentric thesis “philosophically foolish and absurd and formally heretical, since in many places it expressly contradicts the sentences of the Holy Scriptures according to their literal meaning, the common exposition, and the sense of the Holy Fathers and doctors of theology.”

Galileo met with cardinal Robert Bellarmine, considered the greatest Catholic theologian of the day and labeled “the hammer of the heretics.” Bellarmine formally admonished Galileo to stop promoting his opinions on the sun-centered system.

Facing the Inquisition Court

Galileo tried to act prudently, but he did not renounce his support of the Copernican thesis. Seventeen years later, in 1633, Galileo appeared before the Inquisition court. Cardinal Bellarmine was dead, but now Galileo’s main opposer was Pope Urban VIII, who had in the past been favorable. Writers have called this trial one of the most famous and unjust in antiquity, even ranking it along with the trials of Socrates and Jesus.

What provoked the trial? Galileo wrote a book entitled Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. In effect, it advocated heliocentrism. The author was directed to present himself to the court in 1632, but Galileo delayed, being ill and almost 70 years old. He made the trip to Rome the following year, after being threatened with bonds and forced transportation. By order of the pope, he was interrogated and even threatened with torture.

Whether this sick old man was actually tortured is a matter of controversy. As recorded in his conviction sentence, Galileo was subjected to “rigorous examination.” According to Italo Mereu, a historian of Italian law, that phrase was the technical expression of the day used to describe torture. A number of scholars agree with that interpretation.

At any rate, Galileo was sentenced in an austere hall before the members of the Inquisition on June 22, 1633. He was found guilty of “having held and believed false doctrine, contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures, that the Sun . . . does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world.”

Galileo did not want to become a martyr, so he was forced to recant. After his sentence was read, the elderly scientist, kneeling and dressed as a penitent, solemnly pronounced: “I do abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies [the Copernican theory] and in general all and any other error, heresy, or sect contrary to the Holy Church.”

There is a popular tradition​—unconfirmed by solid evidence—​that after abjuring, Galileo stamped his foot and exclaimed in protest: “And yet it does move!” Commentators claim that the humiliation of renouncing his discoveries anguished the scientist until his death. He had been condemned to jail, but his sentence was commuted to perpetual house arrest. As blindness descended upon him, he lived in near seclusion.

Pope Urban VIII and the theologians of the Roman Inquisition did in fact condemn the Copernican theory, claiming that it was contrary to the Bible. Galileo’s adversaries referred to Joshua’s statement, “Sun, stand thou still,” which, according to their reading, was to be understood literally. (Joshua 10:12, King James Version) But does the Bible really contradict the Copernican theory? Not at all.

The contradiction lay between science and an obviously incorrect interpretation of Scripture. That was how Galileo saw the matter. He wrote to a pupil: “Even though Scripture cannot err, its interpreters and expositors can, in various ways. One of these, very serious and very frequent, would be when they always want to stop at the purely literal sense.” Any serious student of the Bible would have to agree.a

Galileo went further. He claimed that two books, the Bible and the book of nature, were written by the same Author and could not contradict each other. He added, though, that a person could not “with certainty assert that all interpreters speak under divine inspiration.” This implicit criticism of the church’s official interpretation was likely considered a provocation, leading the Roman Inquisition to condemn the scientist. After all, how dare a mere layman interfere with ecclesiastical prerogatives?

Referring to the Galileo case, several scholars have raised doubts about the infallibility of both the church and the pope. Catholic theologian Hans Küng writes that “numerous and indisputable” errors of “the ecclesiastical teaching office,” including “the condemnation of Galileo,” have brought the dogma of infallibility into question.