Stephen168
New member
Is it really your only problem?
You have cherry picked the OP, so lets look at the whole sentence:
“The truth has always been available but those who hated the Church continued to propagate numerous lies down to the present day, lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts and popular non-fiction, pseudo science down to the present day.”
Before I completed my formal education, which was before the internet, I heard four of the five myths. My children know the myths and their spouses know the myths. The myths have been repeated on this forum. It is clear the myths are still being repeated and believed.
I agree. It is really not your only problem but a red herring. We all know the myths are out there, and they are still out there to this day.
The internet blogger gave an accurate explanation on why it is a myth. While you cherry picked the OP to make his point seem to be more narrow than it was, you have done the same thing with the Cardinal, the Pope, and the Catholic Church.
Pope John Paul II explained in his talk, that you referenced, that “the geocentric representation of the world was commonly admitted in the culture of the time as fully agreeing with the teaching of the Bible” and “the new science, with its methods and the freedom of research which they implied, obliged theologians to examine their own criteria of scriptural interpretation. Most of them did not know how to do so.” “The majority of theologians did not recognize the formal distinction between Sacred Scripture and its interpretation, and this led them unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith a question which in fact pertained to scientific investigation.”
Theologians are not the Church, and a ‘majority’ or ‘most’ is not all.
The Pope then reminds us what Cardinal Poupard said Cardinal Bellarmine wrote, “I say that if it were really demonstrated that the sun is at the centre of the world and the earth is in the third heaven, and that it is not the sun which revolves round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great circumspection in the explanation of Scriptural texts which seem contrary to this assertion and to say that we do not understand them, rather than to say that what is demonstrated is false.” and what St. Augustine wrote, ’If it happens that the authority of Sacred Scripture is set in opposition to clear and certain reasoning, this must mean that the person who interprets Scripture does not understand it correctly. It is not the meaning of Scripture which is opposed to the truth, but the meaning which he has wanted to give to it. That which is opposed to Scripture is not what is in Scripture but what he has placed there himself, believing that this is what Scripture meant’
The internet blogger also quoted Cardinal Bellarmine because as Cardinal Poupard said and the Pope affirmed, Cardinal Bellermine articulated the Church position at the time of the trial. The Church is willing to change its exegesis if heliocentrism can be proven. So it is a myth that heliocentrism was condemned because the Church believed the Bible had to be taken literally. As the internet blogger pointed out, biblical literalism is found in Protestantism, not Catholicism.
To answer your question, You don’t have to choose; they are both right.
it remains that any Catholic, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, could justifiably state the obvious fact that if Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either.