{"id":1015,"date":"2007-07-16T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-16T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2007\/07\/16\/galileo-bruno-and-the-inquisition\/"},"modified":"2007-07-16T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-16T18:58:00","slug":"galileo-bruno-and-the-inquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2007\/07\/16\/galileo-bruno-and-the-inquisition\/","title":{"rendered":"Galileo, Bruno, and the Inquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Guardian <\/span>today, someone wrote a letter<\/a> suggesting that neither Galileo nor Bruno were dragged before the Inquisition for their scientific views (the author was responding to this<\/a>). I wrote a letter responding. See below.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia is interesting on Bruno (though I don’t know how reliable it is generally). Scroll down to “conflicts over his execution<\/a>“, for example. This<\/a> document, from the Vatican itself, is unequivocal about Bruno being interrogated about his scientific views. See especially the big penultimate paragraph.<\/p>\n

There are many Catholic writings seeking to downplay the Galileo affair. Some insist that the Church wanted to censor not Galileo’s scientific views, but merely his theological ones. See this example<\/a> from www.catholiceducation.org. Notice, among other things, the very subtle way in which the scientific dispute is recast as a theological one (and also the way in which key details, such as the Church’s earlier command to Galileo not to claim the heliocentric theory is literally true, are airbrushed out):<\/p>\n

“What, then, caused the row with the Church? The first thing to remember is that Galileo’s heliocentric theory… wasn’t the real source of his ecclesiastical difficulties. Rather, the cause of his persecution stemmed from a presumption to teach the sense in which certain Bible passages should be interpreted (using science as the ultimate criterion).”<\/span><\/p>\n

Also note the comment: “Was the Church wrong to ban Galileo’s writings? A good case can be made that it was not.”<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s my letter,<\/p>\n

LETTER<\/p>\n

Gerald McAreavey\u2019s claim that Galileo\u2019s arrest and house imprisonment was \u201cnot for his scientific views, but for his refusal to refrain from theological interpretations of scripture\u201d is simply wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who has read Koestler\u2019s <\/span>The Sleepwalkers<\/span>, which McAreavey cites in his support, will know that Galileo was brought before the Inquisition because he was alleged to have claimed that the Copernican system was not merely a useful hypothesis, but literally true – an opinion the Holy Office had already commanded him to relinquish back in 1616.<\/span><\/p>\n

Galileo was shown the instruments of torture and condemned to life imprisonment (later commuted to house arrest) for daring to voice a scientific opinion. Galileo\u2019s colleague Bruno was murdered by the Inquisition for, among other things, committing the same crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was a shameful episode in the Catholic Church\u2019s history and it does revisionists like McAreavey no credit to pretend otherwise. Especially when they get their facts wrong.<\/p>\n

<\/span>However, having submitted that, I had a rethink. The Bruno claim is, I suppose, at least contentious in the minds of many (see the wikipedia link), and thus a hostage to fortune. Also, it’s probably an exaggeration to say McAreavey pretends the Galileo episode is not shameful to the Church. Rather, like www.catholiceducation.org, I guess he thinks it less shameful than is commonly supposed (certainly, he’s denying its shameful in relation to the religion vs. science issue – so far as he’s concerned, it simply doesn’t bear on that). So I sent a revised version like so:<\/p>\n

LETTER<\/p>\n

Gerald McAreavey\u2019s claim that Galileo\u2019s arrest and house imprisonment was \u201cnot for his scientific views, but for his refusal to refrain from theological interpretations of scripture\u201d is simply wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who has read Koestler\u2019s The Sleepwalkers, which McAreavey cites in his support, will know that Galileo was brought before the Inquisition because he was alleged to have claimed that the Copernican system was not merely a useful hypothesis, but literally true – an opinion the Holy Office had already commanded him to relinquish back in 1616.<\/span><\/p>\n

Galileo was shown the instruments of torture and condemned to life imprisonment (later commuted to house arrest) for daring to voice a scientific opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was a shameful episode in the Catholic Church\u2019s history and it does revisionists like McAreavey no credit to downplay it. Especially when they get their facts wrong.
<\/span>
Revised version probably too late, however…<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Guardian today, someone wrote a letter suggesting that neither Galileo nor Bruno were dragged before the Inquisition for their scientific views (the author was responding to this). I wrote a letter responding. See below. Wikipedia is interesting on Bruno (though I don’t know how reliable it is generally). Scroll down to “conflicts over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galileo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}