The Galileo Affair (4)

Here is how Diance Moczar in Seven Lies About Catholic History sums up:

Galileo’s version of heavenly motion included details, such as perfect circular motion for the planets, which failed to satisfy other astronomers on technical grounds… When he began to champion the Copernican theory as a fact, he was met not only with scientific skepticism but also with the problem of those scriptural passages that appeared to contradict the theory. Convinced as usual that he was absolutely right, and impatient with the skeptics, Galileo went to Rome to try to obtain support... The Pope tried to persuade his headstrong friend to espouse Copernicus’s idea as the mere theory it was... [Furthermore] the papacy—still anxious to heal the Protestant rupture—was concerned with not appearing to support an idea that scandalized the Lutherans and Calvinists

Galileo, however, seemed to have little sensitivity to the delicacy of the issue, and he went on the offensive... [He] related in a letter how he had dealt with the controversy at a dinner party in a fashionable house. “I commenced,” he boasted, “to play the theologian.” Were his enemies using Scripture against him? He could interpret Scripture too, and he would demonstrate that in fact Scripture supported him and not his opponents. Thus Galileo claimed the right to decide what Scripture means in the light of his unproven theory...

Then Galileo publically humiliated his friend Pope Urban by publishing a fictional debate between characters supporting Galileo’s views and a fool (“Simplicio”) who supports Aristotle, making it clear that the fool personified the Pope.  Galileo had very publically thrown down the gauntlet by claiming theological authority and dismissing the Pope as a simpleton.

The Galileo Affair (3)

Galileo formally expressed his support for the Copernican system in 1610 with publication of his Letters on the Sunspots. Cardinal Maffeo Barberini – later Pope Urban VIII – wrote an “enthusiastic letter of congratulation.”  The Church supported the Copernican system being presented as an, as yet unproven, theoretical model that explained certain astronomical observations more reliably than any other system. Unfortunately, Galileo believed the Copernican system to be literally true despite lacking specific evidence to support this belief.

Galileo’s even made assertions of proof that scientist now consider laughable.  Such as arguing that tides proved the earth's movement. He could not answer the geocentrists' objection that if the earth moved then parallax shifts should be evident in our observations of the stars, but they were not.

Jerome Langford, who has done considerable scholarly research on Galileo, wrote: “Galileo was convinced that he had the truth. But objectively he had no proof with which to win the allegiance of open-minded men. It is a complete injustice to contend that… no one would listen to his arguments, that he never had a chance. The Jesuit astronomers had confirmed his discoveries; they [waited] eagerly for further proof so that they could …come out solidly in favor of Copernicanism. Many influential churchmen believed that Galileo might be right, but they had to wait for more proof.”

The issue initially was, lacking definitive evidence, there was no basis for accepting the Copernican system as fact – not only in the mind of the Church but of science generally.  There were valid reasons for all to proceed cautiously.

The Galileo Affair (2)

Along with encouragement from learned ecclesial dignitaries, Copernicus, in 1543 published Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits.  Copernicus dedicated it to Pope Paul III. 

Astronomers who were critical of heliocentrism at the time, “objected that the earth could not move through space as fast as Copernicus said it did, because of its weight, and that if the earth were spinning it should cause dropped objects to fall behind, instead of directly below, the point from which they were dropped. They questioned how the moon could orbit both the earth and the sun at the same time, and they wondered why things did not simply fall off a moving earth. These were not stupid questions, and some of them would only be answerable in the following century when Newton analyzed the concept of gravity and applied it to astronomy.” [Seven Lies About Catholic History by Diane Moczar]

Although it was attacked by Protestants for being opposed to Holy Scripture, the Copernican system was subject to no formal Catholic censure, at least not until Galileo insisted - without adequate evidence - that it was fact.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), did make important observations using a telescope that lent support to the Copernican model. He saw mountains on the moon, demonstrating that that heavenly bodies were not perfect spheres as had been assumed. He discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter, proving that a planet moving in its orbit would not leave its smaller satellites behind. (One argument against an orbiting Earth was that the moon would be left behind.) And in 1610, Galileo detected Venus moving through a cycle of phases much like the Earth’s moon, another observation not explainable with a geocentric model.