Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post
Newsgroups: americast.wpost
From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com
Subject: Vatican Says Galileo Right After All;3 Centuries Later, Pope Admits Error<By
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 92 09:14:31 EST
Message-ID: <49.1992Nov1.091431@AmeriCast.com>

Vatican Says Galileo Right After All;3 Centuries Later, Pope Ad-
mits Error<By William D. Montalbano<Los Angeles Times=

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 31 - It's official: The Earth revolves around
the sun, even for the Vatican.

The Roman Catholic Church has admitted to erring these past 359
years in formally condemning Galileo Galilei for entertaining
scientific truths it long denounced as against-the-Scriptures
heresy.

Pope John Paul II himself turned up today for a meeting of the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences to help set the record straight on
behalf of the 17th-century Italian mathematician, astronomer and
physicist who was the first man to use a telescope and who is
remembered as one of history's greatest scientists.

"The underlying problems of this case concern both the nature of
science and the message of faith," the pope noted. "One day we
may find ourselves in a similar situation, which will require
both sides to have an informed awareness of the field and of the
limits of their own competencies."

Thirteen years after he appointed it, a commission of historic,
scientific and theological inquiry brought the pope a "not guil-
ty" finding for Galileo, who, at age 69 in 1633, was forced to
repent by the Roman Inquisition and spent the last eight years of
his life under house arrest.

The commission found that Galileo's clerical judges acted in good
faith but rejected his theories because they were "incapable of
dissociating faith from an age-old cosmology" - the biblical vi-
sion of the Earth as the center of the universe. "God fixed the
Earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever," says one Bi-
ble verse contradicted by Galileo's pioneering notion that the
Earth spins daily on its axis and makes an annual journey around
the sun.

Unable to comprehend a non-literal reading of Scripture, accord-
ing to the commission, the judges feared that if Galileo's ideas
were taught, they would undermine Catholic tradition at a time
when it was under attack by Protestant reformers like Martin
Luther and John Calvin.  "This subjective error of judgment, so
clear to us today, led them to a disciplinary measure from which
Galileo 'had much to suffer.' These mistakes must be frankly
recognized, as you, Holy Father, have requested," Cardinal Paul
Poupard, the commission chairman, told the pope.

Tried on "vehement suspicion of heresy," Galileo was forced to
swear that he "abjured, cursed and detested" the errors of his
work, which extended the findings of the Polish astronomer
Nicolaus Copernicus that the Earth moves. Legend insists that as
he finished his abject, life-saving confession of his errors to
the black-cowled inquisitors, Galileo muttered under his breath:
"Nevertheless, it does move." It took the church two centuries to
begin to come to grips with Galileo's ideas: His "Dialogues Con-
cerning the Two Chief World Systems" was not removed from the In-
dex of Prohibited Books until 1835. Both John Paul and the inves-
tigatory mission had offered partial rehabilitations for Galileo
in recent years.

"A tragic mutual incomprehension has been interpreted as the re-
flection of a fundamental opposition between science and faith.
The clarifications furnished by recent historical studies enable
us to state that this sad misunderstanding now belongs to the
past," the pope said today.<02:47 11-01C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)