Was Cardinal Robert Bellarmine trying to help Galileo?

Answer 1

Galileo's letter of 1614 to the Grand Duchess Christina Duchess of Tuscany was not widely known, and was ignored by Church authorities. When a year later the Carmelite provincial Paolo Foscarini supported Galileo publicly by attempting to prove that the new theory was not opposed to Scripture, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, as "Master of Controversial Questions," responded.

On April 12, 1615 the saint wrote to Foscarini:

"I have gladly read the letter in Italian and the treatise which Your Reverence sent me, and I thank you for both. And I confess that both are filled with ingenuity and learning, and since you ask for my opinion, I will give it to you very briefly, as you have little time for reading and I for writing:

"First. I say that it seems to me that Your Reverence and Galileo did prudently to content yourself with speaking hypothetically, and not absolutely, as I have always believed that Copernicus spoke. For to say that, assuming the earth moves and the sun stands still, all the appearances are saved better than with eccentrics and epicycles, is to speak well; there is no danger in this, and it is sufficient for mathematicians. But to want to affirm that the sun really is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself (i. e., turns upon its axis ) without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the Holy Scriptures false. For Your Reverence has demonstrated many ways of explaining Holy Scripture, but you have not applied them in particular, and without a doubt you would have found it most difficult if you had attempted to explain all the passages which you yourself have cited.
So it seems that although Bellarmine did not fully agree with Galileo`s theory he tried to be helpful, and warn him of the dangers that he would face.