Comparing The Condemnation Of Galileo And The Catholic Church
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Galileo and the Catholic Church The condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Catholic Church is a historic piece of history that is often misunderstood. Galileo was a renowned Italian physicist and astronomer of the 17th century and his conclusions were scrutinized by his peers and Church officials alike. This made Galileo a target of many complaints. It is believed that Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition in 1633 because he stood up for his belief in Copernicus’s theory that the earth was not the center of the universe, as the Church insisted, but that the universe is heliocentric. What is the truth behind Galileo’s condemnation?
In 1616, the advisors to Pope Paul V ruled that it was bad science and heresy to teach Copernicus’s theory that the sun was at the center of the universe. Galileo was advised of the ruling by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. After the injunction Galileo agreed that he would not teach Copernicus’s theory as anything but a hypothesis but he blatantly disregarded the injunction and continued with his work.…show more content… This passage truly shows his arrogance, he defends himself by implying that his discoveries and teachings are not wrong and do not go against the Bible and that the problem lies with those who are reading the Bible and their failure to understand and interpret correctly what is being said. In a letter to Father Castelli, Galileo stated something similar, “Holy Scripture could never be in error, he asserted as he moved to the argument, but its interpreters could err, and the greatest error of all was to treat the words of the Bible literally” (Reston Jr.