H
HailMary
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Indeed he was removed from the Church because he would not repent and also because Christ gave the power of excommunication to the Church
“if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector"
† Matthew 18:15-18
The Galileo thing is highly confusing because many protestants are not even sure what happened.
The Key Is In The Book Of Joshua
From Wil Milan’s article “Twisting the Knife” (November/December 1999), one may be led to conclude that Pope Urban VIII excommunicated Galileo because Galileo incurred the wrath of the Church by ridiculing the Pope in his Dialogue. Unfortunately, this overlooks the crux of the matter.
The Congregation of the Holy Office condemned Galileo in 1616, under Pope Paul V, and again in 1633 under Pope Urban VIII. Contrary to modern belief, the excommunication was unrelated to Galileo’s theory that the earth moved around the sun, a discovery made in 1543 by a Catholic priest from Poland named Copernicus. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa held this same view, and neither he nor Fr. Copernicus encountered any opposition from the Holy See. The Holy See does not comment on theories of science unless they are presented as scientific truths that contradict revealed truth, in which case these scientific theories become theological pronouncements.
Mr. Milan writes, “After careful study of the matter and of Galileo’s evidence, Cardinal [Robert] Bellarmine . . . concluded that Galileo did not contradict Scripture.” This assertion must be qualified by the following passage from letter the Cardinal wrote to a Mr. Foscarini, a close friend of Galileo: “There would be no objection on the part of the Congregation to putting forward the system of Copernicus as the best explanation of the celestial phenomena provided no reference was made to the apparent conflict with the Bible” (emphasis added).
The Congregation took issue not with the movement of the celestial bodies around the sun but with Galileo’s statement that the sun did not move. Why is that? The key is in the book of Joshua: “Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day” (Josh. 10:12–14, emphasis added).
If the sun does not move, as Galileo affirmed, how could the Lord have commanded it to stand still? The Church had not made an infallible pronouncement on the proper interpretation of these verses.** Galileo, on the other hand, was making one: The sun does not move, meaning either Scripture is in error or the Church has to infallibly declare that the meaning of these verses is not literal.**
The Church, to protect the faithful and to call Galileo to repentance, issued her condemnation. Pope John Paul II has removed the bull of excommunication against Galileo in part because the astronomer’s teaching no longer constitutes a danger to the faithful (just as Paul’s stern warning against circumcision in Galatians 5:2–4 was binding for his time but is not binding today).
The irony is that, factually, the seventeenth-century Church was on the side of science, which has shown that the sun does move and is not fixed, as Galileo would have had it.
Naji Mouawad
Enjoy.
) but we must always respond in love. Even if we think the person is full of spit and venom, this is all the more reason we should show Christ’s Love.
God Bless you:thumbsup: