Metaviews 015. 2001.03.07. Approximately 970 words.Below is a follow-up posting to Metaviews 012: Galileo's Troubles.
Mariano Artigas clarifies the circumstances regarding Galileo's
condemnation by the Church in 1633.
-- Billy Grassie
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From: "Mariano Artigas" <martigas@unav.es>
Subject: Re: Metaviews 012
Regarding Metaviews 012 (Galileo's troubles), we have received some
comments, that show that the whole thing has been misunderstood by
some people. The comment in Metaviews 012 was perhaps too brief. I
would like to complete it in order to interpret the new document
properly.
The process against Galileo took place in 1633 and is very well
documented. We have the complete text of the interrogations, the
sentence, a lot of letters documenting many circumstances. All this
was published already about 1900, and now is available also in
English. This will not change however many new documents could be
discovered. The reason of the condemnation is that Galileo published
in 1632 the DIALOGO ON THE TWO GREAT SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD, THE
COPERNICAN AND THE TOLEMAIC, where he argued in favor of
heliocentrism (that the Earth rotates around the Sun). In 1616 the
Congregation of the Index of forbidden books had suspended the work
of Copernicus (published in 1543) until it was corrected, the
correction meaning that some passages where Copernicus represents
heliocentrism as a truth should be changed in order to present it as
a hypothesis. In the Decree, the Congregation judged heliocentrism
contrary to the litteral meaning of Scripture. Galileo knew this very
well, as the Holy Office, through cardinal Bellarmine, notified this
to him personally in 1616, so that he would refrain from arguing in
favor of heliocentrism in the future. Galileo tried to present his
1632 book as respectful towards that Decree, as a discussion on
heliocentrism which would remain without defining the question.
Nevertheless, he was accused of having argued in favor of
heliocentrism (which was quite right), and this was the real reason
of the process and the condemnation to prison, which was immediately
commuted for house arrest.
The document G 3 discovered by Pietro Redondi in the 1980s was a
non-dated anonymous accusation against Galileo based on his book IL
SAGGIATORE, published in 1623. There Galileo defends a kind of
atomism and says that sensible qualities like color, flavor and so on
are subjective, the effect of the action of particles on our sense
organs, and are nothing outside the subject that feels them. The
accusation said that this was incompatible with the Roman Catholic
doctrine of the Eucharist as defined by the Council of Trent (and a
number of times before), that Christ is present in the Eucharist but
the appearances of bread and wine remain. Theologians used to
identifie these APPEARANCES with the ACCIDENTS or SENSIBLE QUALITIES
of Aristotle and the scholastic philosophers, but the documents of
the Church (in Trent and before) speake of SPECIES of bread and wine,
that is, appearances, not of accidents. We know, from the acts of the
Council, that the Fathers of Trent did not want to enter into
philosophical or theological questions like that. No wonder, then,
that the accusation against Galileo based on the Eucharist did not
progress. The authorities of the Church did nothing at all against
Galileo in this line: this is a plain fact. According to Redondi,
this was due to the fact the Pope Urban VIII was a friend of Galileo
and deviated the whole thing towards the motion of Earth, avoiding a
trial based on the Eucharist, which would have been much worse. But
this is a too extreme interpretation and Redondi has remained alone
with his thesis.
The new Paper, EE 291, is a report, probably by a member of the
Congregation of the Index, on the same line. The unknown author of
the report (also non-dated and anonymous) claims that Galileo's book
IL SAGGIATORE in fact opposes the Eucharistic doctrine of Trent and
can be further examined in the Holy Office. But the result, as
already said, was that the Holy Office did not take an action against
Galileo on this ground. Therefore, we find here an accusation against
Galileo that did not go ahead, because the authorities of the Church
paid no attention to it. They were right. Galileo's doctrine is
compatible with the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
Some letters exchanged between Galileo and his friend Mario Guiducci,
who was in Rome at the time (around 1624), provide further clues of
what happened. A likely version is that the charge against Galileo
reached the Holy Office, where cardinal Francesco Barberini, a
personal friend of Galileo and the right hand of the Pope, took it as
a personal task and entrusted a theologian, who accompanied him to a
diplomatic mission to Paris, to examine the accusation. According to
the report of the theologian, there was no ground for an accusation
against Galileo (which was right), and this was the end of it.
As someone has pointed out, all this is related to the theological
discussions around the philosophy of Descartes on the same topic,
shortly afterwards. But, as a matter of fact, the accusation against
Galileo based on the alleged incompatibility of his philosophy with
the Eucharistic doctrine did not progress.
We remain ready to any further question or comment. By the way, prof.
Shea indicates that under no 7 of the Englisg version of the
document, after FOR WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?, you should add: THIS
CLINCHES THE ARGUMENT. And it is obvious that there was an error in
the names of Mariano Artigas and Rafael Martinez somewhere. Professor
Shea is not too happy with the alleged demythologization of the
Galileo affair. There were a number of messages going and returning
from and to Pamplona, Philadelphia, Strasburg and Rome in a short
time.
Mariano Artigas
University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain