What do Catholics say about Galileo?

[Hoonbaba]

Hi guys,

I was reading something from my astronomy textbook and I'd like to know if any Catholics can share comments on this:

"He [Galileo] was (literally) playing with fire-he must certainly have been aware that only a few years earlier, in 1600, the astronomer Giordano Bruno had been burned at the stake in Rome, in part for his heretical teaching that Earth orbited the Sun.  However, by all accounts, Galileo delighted in publicly ridiculing and irritating his Aristotelian colleagues.  In 1616 his ideas were judged heretical, Copernicus's works were banned by the Roman Catholic Church, and Galileo was instructed to abandon his astronomical pursuits"

Is this true?  Half true? Or is there something extremely bias here?

Thoughts please =)

-Jason

 

[Magisterium]

Some of the teachings of Galileo I.E. that comets were atmospherical, the tides were due to the earth's rotation and NOT due to the gravitational pull of the moon were obviously false. But what got him in trouble wasn't that he had scientific opinions contrary to the church's astronomers, but that he asserted them as objective truth above all other astronomers/natural philosophers of the time. Most of the others, had the humility to teach their findings as theories. But not Galileo...

For the whole story, check out:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm

As for Bruno, you text implies that he was executed for his astronomical teachings. This is not true. His theological elaborations are what got him in trouble. However, it is also important to understand how Catholic Christianity existed under Roman law. Rome maintained ultimate authority and just like Judiasm before it, Christian rules existed as a subset of Roman law. All punishments for breaking these laws, were decided and imposed by Rome. (Just as Jesus' defiance of the Jewish priests was punished by Crucifixion carried out by the Roman authorities)

For the whole story, check out:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm

 

[Wolseley]

Galileo didn't get into hot water for astronomy either; he got in trouble for challenging Church authority.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Galileo made one big mistake that caused his trouble: he put the words of the pope into the mouth of a character named Simplicio. This was what caused the pope, an Italian nobleman, to go from interest in Galileo's ideas to acquiessing to the demands of Galileo's opponents.

 

[Hoonbaba]

Today at 08:41 AM Wolseley said this in Post #3

Galileo didn't get into hot water for astronomy either; he got in trouble for challenging Church authority.

Hi Wols,

Can you point me to a source?  I'd like to read into it =P

-Jason

 

[Wolseley]

For starters, you could try Chapter 20 of Patrick Madrid's Pope Fiction (Basilica Press, 1999; ISBN 0-9642610-0-6), which goes into it in some detail.

 

[Axion]

There is a lot of anti-Catholic bias that goes into most modern reports of the Galileo and Bruno incidents.

The attempt is to try and pursuade people that the Catholic Church acted as a bar to the growth of scientific knowledge. The underlying message being that progress was despite the Church and Christianity rather than because of it. (The Catholic Church having of course founded the universities, preserved learning, and furthered the natural sciences)

The report on Bruno is openly dishonest, since Bruno was condemned for his outlandish religious views, not his science. Among other things, he said that Moses was a great magician. It was fiction that he spoke with god. Jesus was a magician and a wretch. There was no reason to wonder at his miracles because he, Bruno, could perform even greater ones.

This is a good site about him:
http://members.aol.com/pantheism0/brunlife.htm

Galileo was placed under house arrest by the Inquisition, again less for his science than for the fact that he presented it in such a way as to argue the falsehood of the bible.

Yet what few of those who use Galileo's story against the Church state is that Copernicus, who actually formulated the theory that the earth went round the sun, which Galileo later adopted, was himself a Catholic priest.

A Catholic take on the affair can be found here:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/GalileoAffair.html