In 1633, the Roman Inquisition, a committee of cardinals of the Catholic church, considered the case against Galileo and pronounced its final judgment. It found Galileo guilty of heresy against Catholic doctrine for defending heliocentrism but allowed him to recant and thus avoid the death penalty usual in cases of heresy. Nearly 350 years later, in 1980, Pope John Paul II appointed a commission to review the evidence and verdict. After four years, the commission published its findings and concluded that the judges who condemned Galileo were wrong.

We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office [Inquisition] vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated by the sacred canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents. We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in front of us you abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, in the manner and form we will prescribe to you.

Furthermore, so that this serious and pernicious error and transgression of yours does not remain completely unpunished, and so that you will be more cautious in the future and an example for others to abstain from similar crimes, we order that the book Dialogue [Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632] by Galileo Galilei be prohibited by public edict.

Source: Maurice A. Finocchiaro, ed., The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 291.

Question to Consider

Why did the Catholic church go to such dramatic lengths to repress Galileo’s scientific argument in support of heliocentrism?