{"id":4566,"date":"2010-12-27T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianethicstoday.com\/wp\/?p=4566"},"modified":"2022-02-12T14:18:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T21:18:59","slug":"the-curious-case-of-galileo-galilei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianethicstoday.com\/wp\/the-curious-case-of-galileo-galilei\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curious Case of Galileo Galilei"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Curious Case of Galileo Galilei
\n<\/span><\/b>By Karl E. Johnson, Center for Christian Studies, Ithaca, NY Last week, the Niels Stensen  <\/span>Foundation, a Jesuit study center  <\/span>in Florence, Italy, convened a conference entitled “The Galileo Affair”  <\/span>to show how recent research “might  <\/span>alleviate the ‘tension and conflict’ still  <\/span>clouding the relationship between the  <\/span>Church and science.” Indeed, four  <\/span>hundred years after the Florentine  <\/span>astronomer’s extraordinary discoveries, we are still assaulted with the  <\/span>message that science and religion are  <\/span>at war. Try telling that, however, to  <\/span>Brother Guy Consolmagno.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

Consolmagno is a Jesuit astronomer employed by the Vatican  <\/span>Observatory, where he serves as the  <\/span>curator of an extensive meteorite collection—several specimens of which  <\/span>he has discovered himself. The Vatican  <\/span>began employing astronomers in the  <\/span>nineteenth century, Consolmagno  <\/span>says, “to show the world that the  <\/span>Catholic Church supports science.”<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, Vatican support for  <\/span>science is partly public relations.  <\/span>According to the conventional wisdom still taught in schools and  <\/span>repeated by many public intellectuals, Galileo bravely spoke truth (science) to power (the Church), and  <\/span>paid dearly for it, spending his dying  <\/span>days in prison. Except that it’s not  <\/span>true. Ronald L. Numbers’  <\/span>Galileo  <\/span>Goes to Jail: And Other Myths About  <\/span>Science and Religion, just out from  <\/span>Harvard University Press, is only the  <\/span>most recent attempt to set the historical record straight on “Myths,”  <\/span>including its Number Eight: That  <\/span>Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured  <\/span>for Advocating Copernicanism.  <\/span>Apparently Carl Sagan’s quip that  <\/span>Galileo was “in a Catholic dungeon  <\/span>threatened with torture” has all the  <\/span>academic rigor of the Indigo Girls  <\/span>song that begins “Galileo’s head was  <\/span>on the block.”<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

Consider: Galileo’s  <\/span>Dialogue  <\/span>Concerning the Two Chief World  <\/span>Systems, the source of controversy, previously had been read and approved by  <\/span>the Church’s censors; and Pope Urban  <\/span>VIII, who presided over the trial, was  <\/span>Galileo’s friend and admirer. Consider  <\/span>also: prior to the trial, Galileo stayed  <\/span>in the Tuscan embassy; during the  <\/span>trial, he was put up in a six-room  <\/span>apartment, complete with servant;  <\/span>following the trial, his “house arrest”  <\/span>consisted of being entertained at the  <\/span>palaces of the grand duke of Tuscany  <\/span>and the Archbishop of Siena. Galileo,  <\/span>apparently, was no ordinary heretic.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

According to an article by historian David Marshall Miller published last year in the journal History  <\/span>of Science, recent studies of the Galileo  <\/span>Affair have “exploded this ‘myth’ that  <\/span>Galileo’s condemnation was a conflict  <\/span>between science and faith, novelty and  <\/span>authority, or rationality and irrationality.” The Affair, Miller says, was actually occasioned by the Thirty Years  <\/span>War. Indeed, Galileo’s troubles began  <\/span>somewhat suddenly in 1633—just  <\/span>after the Holy Roman Empire suffered  <\/span>setbacks in the was. To make a long  <\/span>story very short: Pope Urban VIII,  <\/span>who had been elected with support of  <\/span>French Cardinals, was suspected and  <\/span>accused of sympathizing with France,  <\/span>which opposed the Empire in the war.  <\/span>In essence, Spaniards and others were  <\/span>wondering, “Is the Pope Catholic?”  <\/span>The apparent contradiction between  <\/span>Galileo’s widely publicized imprisonment and his actual treatment suggests  <\/span>that his trial and “house arrest” were  <\/span>largely symbolic gestures—the Pope’s  <\/span>concession to his political critics, and  <\/span>a way for him to demonstrate his  <\/span>Catholic credentials.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

History, like science, teaches us  <\/span>that appearances can be deceiving.  <\/span>Indeed, what appear to be conflicts  <\/span>between science and religion are  <\/span>almost always conflicts over political  <\/span>power and cultural authority. The sin  <\/span>of the Church in the Galileo Affair  <\/span>was not opposing science or free  <\/span>inquiry, but using Galileo as a pawn in what was primarily a political tussle. Perhaps the Stensen Foundation  <\/span>conference will finally put the myth of  <\/span>warfare between science and religion  <\/span>where it belongs—buried alongside  <\/span>the idea that the sun revolves around  <\/span>the earth. Unfortunately, that is not  <\/span>likely. Because the promulgators of  <\/span>the warfare metaphor seem less interested in evidence than in using history  <\/span>for their political and ideological purposes, I suspect the myth of conflict we  <\/span>will have with us always. <\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, Consolmagno  <\/span>delights in doing science. “The amazing thing about meteorites,” he says, “is  <\/span>that you don’t have to go to outer space  <\/span>in order to experience them. Outer  <\/span>space has come to us?” Consolmagno  <\/span>is only one among many people who  <\/span>believe—without conflict—that what  <\/span>is true of meteorites is also true of God  <\/span>himself. In any case, Consolmagno, no  <\/span>less than Galileo, is living proof that  <\/span>“Catholic Astronomer” is not an oxymoron. <\/span><\/p>\n

These articles originally appeared in Sightings (7\/09, 6\/25, and 6\/04\/09), a publication of the Martin Marty Center of the University of Chicago Divinity School.  <\/span><\/o_p><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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