Galileo & Roman Catholic Church Conflict: Blog on Culture and Social History

Highlights

• Bold statement by Galileo underlined his belief that Earth revolves around the Sun.
• Why and how Galileo experiments debunked long-held astronomical theories.
• Galileo and Roman Catholic Church.
• Why the followers Galileo cut off three of his fingers?

A man was sitting in a room, gazing at the sky. Suddenly, he looked down at the ground and stomped his foot, exclaiming, “But it moves!” It was the year 1634, and the man who said this was Galileo Galilei.

“The Sun does not revolve around the Earth, rather the Earth revolves around the Sun and the stars.” This statement of Galileoes gave a strong challenge to the religious authority, marking a significant conflict between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church. He had to faced serious punishment for his opinion. The Roman Catholic Church sentenced Galileo to death in 1633. But while a century earlier Nicolaus Copernicus a mathematician had put the theory that says “the Earth revolves around the Sun.”

For many years Nicolaus’s theory remain prevalent and then why did Galileo challenge his theory? And why were three fingers of Galileo cut off from his body after his death? In 1592 Galileo had climbed to the top of the tower of Pisa. He threw two circular matel balls which were different in weights. 

After the experiment, he claimed he threw the balls from the tower, both will touch the ground simultaneously.  Galileo was a professor in University of Pisa.  Out of all only one student believed in what Copernicus’s theory.  Copernicus’s theory says that the heavier object will touch the ground first compare to the lighter one, if both dropped from the same height.

Galileo had made many discoveries that proved Aristotle’s theories wrong. Using a telescope, he discovered that the Moon was not a smooth sphere, but had craters and mountains. He also discovered four satellites of Jupiter and saw the rings of Saturn. These discoveries were shocking at the time, as Aristotle’s principles held that all objects in the universe revolved around the Earth. Galileo’s discoveries made him very famous in Rome and surrounding areas.

Galileo’s discoveries led to conflict with the powerful Roman Catholic Church. Galileo rejected Aristotle’s principles one by one, proving them false. However, he never challenged Aristotle’s theory that the Earth is the center of the universe. Galileo believed in this theory. One day, an incident occurred that raised suspicions. Some of Galileo’s students were called to participate in a scientific conference.

The heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus before Galileo, was being demonstrated at the conference. Copernicus’s theory held that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe. Galileo considered this theory to be nonsense and did not attend the conference. However, when his students returned, he asked them how many of them believed in Copernicus’s theory. All of the students said that they did not, except for one, who found Copernicus’s arguments to be convincing.

Galileo did not believe it was right to delay a conversation with his student. To help his lonely student understand, he began teaching him his theories. This marked the beginning of the differences between Galileo’s theories and those of Copernicus.

Galileo experiment his theory for 2 years and proved that Copernicus’s Aristotle theory was wrong.

Today, the universal theory says that “Everything that falls on Earth accelerates at 9.8 meters per second squared.” If you drop a bird’s wing and a heavy iron object simultaneously from a height towards the ground in a vacuum, both objects will touch the ground simultaneously. But Galileo’s actions brought him before the Roman Catholic Church, overshadowing all of his previous good work.

By the year 1615, Galileo was convinced that the idea of the Earth being at the center was false and contrary to the Bible, and this was the reason why he did not say this in public. Sir, in 1615, he wrote in a letter that nature does not care whether humans believe in its rules or not. In the same letter, Galileo wrote another very important thing and said that nothing written in the Bible is wrong but the laws of nature are also not wrong. If there is any difference between the two, then we should look at it from this perspective that the interpretation of the Biblical sources will have to be changed.

Galileo’s views on the Sun-centered universe were clearly against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church believed that only a select few had the right to interpret the Bible, and its teachings at the time held that the Earth was the center of the universe. When the Church learned that Galileo was teaching a different interpretation of the Bible, they sent a priest to meet with him.

Galileo and the priest reached a compromise in which Galileo agreed not to publicly teach or write about his views/theories on the Sun-centered universe. However, in 1632, Galileo published a book called “Dialogue Regarding the Two Chief World Systems” in which he discussed the heliocentric model and the geocentric model of the universe. This book angered the Church, and Galileo was put on trial.

Galileo wrote his book as a dialogue between two people, one who believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth and the other who believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Galileo wrote both sides of the argument fairly, even though he himself believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

The question arises as to why he wrote this book, given that he had agreed with the Roman Catholic Church in 1616 not to write anything about his theory. The answer is that it was the Pope himself who suggested that Galileo write the book. In 1623, a new Pope, Pope Urban VIII, was appointed in Roman Catholic Church. Pope Urban VIII was considered to be close of Galileo, and he had previously supported Galileo’s scientific theories. However, even Pope Urban VIII opposed Galileo’s theory in 1616.

In this book, Galileo criticized the letter writers who opposed heliocentrism, calling them clumsy. Pope Urban VIII interpreted this as a personal attack and ordered Galileo to be tried.

On June 22, 1633, Galileo Galilei was called and forced to kneel before ten cardinals and the Pope. The Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy and forced him to recant his beliefs. He was sentenced to life in prison, but Pope Urban VIII commuted the sentence to house arrest.

Later, Galileo’s sentence was changed to house arrest because his story was gaining popularity and the Church feared public backlash. Galileo accepted the punishment, but he still believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun.  According to a book written 100 years after Galileo’s death. When he was sentenced, Galileo was 71 years old. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence.

As part of his punishment, Galileo was required to read the Seven Penitential Psalms of Bible once a week for three years. He died in 1642 and the Church did not allow his body to be buried near the graves of his parents. Instead, he was buried in a small room in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

After Galileo’s death, some people cuted three of his fingers and one tooth.  This act was done under a tradition, it is considered to be the saint’s closest follower. These body parts are believed to have divine powers. Galileo’s followers did this because he believed in this philosophy and wanted him to be remembered as a domestic saint for science, even if he was not recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. It was a coincidence that the fingers taken from Galileo were the ones he used to write. Today, those three fingers are kept in a museum in Italy.

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