GALILEO
SECULAR JOURNALS
From TIME (7/12/68). "A Catholic prelate strongly hinted that the Vatican may be preparing to lift its condemnation of Galileo Galilei, the 17th century Italian physicist whom the Inquisition put under eight years house arrest for contending that the earth rotates around the sun. Galileo was forced to recant. The official censure has never been removed. An open admission of error by the Church would do much to improve relations between religion and science."
From ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, 11/1/92. "Pope says church erred in condemning Galileo.
Pope John Paul II on Saturday formally proclaimed that the Roman Catholic Church erred in
condemning the astronomer Galileo for holding that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
"Galileo's condemnation resulted from a `tragic mutual incomprehension' and became a symbol for the church's `supposed rejection of scientific progress,' the pope said in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
"The speech was the Vatican's final word on the matter nearly four centuries after the astronomer was found guilty of violating church doctrine by contending the Earth revolved around the sun, and not vice versa. Vatican experts appointed by John Paul had studied the case for 13 years.
Galileo was forced to recant his beliefs and was ordered imprisoned. He died under house arrest, blind but working on his theories to the end.
"(The pope explained), the theologians of the time, in maintaining the `centrality of the Earth,' erred by thinking that the `literal sense of sacred Scripture' explained the physical world.
"The president of the Academy of the Lincei in Rome, of which Galileo was a member, said the pope's speech was a long time coming."
