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metmom:

That doesn’t change the fact that there were countless Catholic Scientist, many of them Priest. The Father of modern Genetics, Mendel was a Catholic Priest, the father of the Bing Bang theory, Lamatrie was a priest. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan priest.

You only know what polemist, primarily, secular ones, say about Galielo. He got in trouble by going beyond accepted science. In fact, most of the Jesuits, who had telescopes as well and were viewing the same things he was agreed that his theory was “likely correct”. Galielo went beyond science and what got him into trouble was getting into Theology and personal attacks on the Pope.

The issue of Galileo is one that both fundamentalist protestatns [which you seem to be] and agnostic empiricist both use to attack the Church. The reality is that neither ever gets their facts straight. Galileo was promoting the Copernican Theory, which was published before his time and the historical evidence indicates that the two leading astronomers of Galileo’s time were split on the question of the Copernican Theory as Kepler accepted it and Brahe did not (Carroll, History of Christendom Volume 4 “The Cleaving of Christendon” p. 492).

In 1610 Galileo made observations which he claimed supported the Copernican Theory, which he argued was proved by the oceans tides [which was false] as it was Bessel in 1838 who found the evidence that proved the Copernican theory.

The Vatican had long been in favor of Scientific Discovery as evidenced by the Catholic Papal Universities in Rome which supported astronomical research in the 16th century and of course the work of the great Jesuit Mathematician, Father Clavius whose work helped formulate the “Gregorian Calendar.” It was Fr. Clavius and the other Jesuits who made the same observations as Galileo and felt that his discoveries were true, ie. that the Copernican theory was probably true, although the evidence was not there yet to fully support it. So again, the notion that the Catholic Church was “anti Science” is nonsense as at the same time of Galileo, the Pope’s had set up observatories in Rome, staffed by the Jesuits, many of whom were also leading scientist.

As Carroll notes again on page 492 in Volume 4 of his work “The Cleaving of Christendom,” some of the Priests of the Dominican order began stating that mathematicians and supporters of the Copernican theory are nothing short of fomenters of heresy. For the record, the Jesuits and Dominicans were at odds against each other [actually accused each other of heresy, the Jesuits accusing the Dominicans of Calvinism, the Dominicans accusing the Jesuits of Pelagianism] and eventually it was Pope Clement VIII who called a commission to settle the dispute, which he resolved by stating that both sides need to “chill in essence” and both can hold their theological systems as being complimentary to the Catholic Church’s understanding of Grace, Divine Providence and human free will, etc. As Carroll notes (p.492), the Dominican Priest Caccini argued that the passage where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still is incompatible with the Copernican theory.
As Carroll states (pp. 492-493), the critics of the Copernican theory were unprepared to recognize that a universe generally governed by physical laws could still accommodate miracles due to the direct action of God. The sun standing still at Joshua’s command was not an action that could be explained by natural laws, but it did not need to be explained by those laws; the miracle could not be seen as disproving the Copernican theory and Scientific Laws since God can override His laws when it suits His purpose.

In addition, the Dominican Caccini accused Galileo of making “scriptural interpretations.” In response, the future Pope Urban VIII [then Cardinal Barberini] told Galileo that he should not extent his arguments beyond the scientific theories of both Ptolemy and Copernicus and when discussing those theories stay within the limits of both Mathematics and physics. As Pope Urban further noted, the interpretation of scripture is ultimately for the Theologians and the Church.

In a similar fashion, Cardinal Bellarmine stated that the Copernican theory may be true, but was not yet conclusively proved and should not be applied to the interpretation of Sacred Scripture until it was definitively proved (Carroll, p. 493 in Volume 4 of his work) Galileo it seems went beyond the limits suggested by both Cardinal Barberini and Bellarmine and he preached the Copernican theory as Truth [which again, was not fully proved until the 19th century]. The critics of Christianity [Renaissance had started] used this debate to mock Christianity.

In the end, regardless of where the earth is in the center of the Universe, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that the earth and all creation has been redeemed via the Incarnation of Christ, i.e. the Word became Flesh (cf. John 1:14) for “many deceivers have gone into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist” (cf. 2 John: 7).

Now, back to Galileo, it is true that Pope Paul V asked for a formal decision about the “Copernican Theory” via the Roman Inquisition. However, Cardinal Bellarmine told the Pope that he should not make any statement on this question [again, remember that Cardinal Bellarmine had publicly stated that he though the Copernican theory was probably true]. So what we have is a group of 11 Theologians making a statement about the Copernican Theory [which is a scientific theory, not a theological one] and none of these 11 Theologians was according to Carroll (p. 493) a natural philosopher or mathematician [Perhaps the Pope should have put some of the Jesuits on the panel]. The Eleven member panel of Theologians stated that the Copernican Theory was “false, absurd and heretical”. However, the Roman Inquisition in its formal decree rejected the word “heretical” and took it out and further more, the Pope made no pronouncement. Still, as Carroll again notes, the statement that the Copernican Theory was “false and absurd” was one of the most grievous mistakes in the History of the Catholic Church for the Church was not empowered by Christ to make formal statements about Science. St. Augustine, who lived from 360 AD to 430 AD made that same statement during his time.

So Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Bellarmine to tell Galileo that he could not teach the Copernican Theory as definitively true, which meant he could teach it as a valid Theory. Carroll then points out (pp. 494-495) that an unsigned document was inserted into Galileo’s file which forbade him from teaching the Copernican System as a Theory. When the controversy arose again in 1632, Galileo testified that he never remembers this document being in the File and Cardinal Bellarmine had gone on record as to what the decree he gave Galileo entailed. Most scholars now conclude that this “unsigned Document” was false and most probably was inserted by a Dominican member of the Inquisition who objected to Galileo, the Copernican System and perhaps the Jesuits who tended to support him.

As Carroll again notes, Galileo was a good Catholic and consented to the decrees of Pope Paul V sent via Cardinal Bellarmine. Nevertheless, the statement the “Copernican system as a scientific theory was false and absurd” was not a smart move, even though the word heretical was correctly taken out of the statement.