In 1632 the Roman Catholic church banished Galileo for suggesting that the Earth revolved around the Sun.?

Question

(The church insisted that the Sun revolved around the Earth).

Could it be that some of the Church's doctrines today are equally wrong? if so, which are they?

"The process against Galileo was reasonable and just" -- Cardinal Ratzinger in the year 1990. I wonder what happened to him?

Answer 1

Hundreds of church doctrines are just as wrong today.

Lets hope not too many more people hve to be burned at stakes before the truth is out. Galileo was lucky to escape the auto da fe.

Answer 2

In fact, the Church's action against Galileo was the result of Galileo's published suggestion that perhaps the laws of nature might explain the cosmos without reference to God. It was not due to his astronomical observations, which were being made by other scientists at the same time. In any case, the notion that the earth occupied a central position in the cosmos was not a defined doctrine of the Church. It was just the universally accepted SCIENTIFIC view of the time, and therefore the universally accepted world view. The Church today accepts the prevailing scientific viewpoint, just as it did then. But it is not a matter of doctrine now, any more than it was then.

Answer 3

They didn't excommunicate Galileo. Also, the problem is not that he said the Earth revolved around the Sun. Galileo said the entire universe revolved around the sun. I wish I was at home right now. I'd get the citation from the history of astronomy book my wife used at York University which dissected the error of Galileo's heliocentric universe theory. This is why we used the Copernican model, which by the way, came out sooner and was met with great zeal from The Church.

Answer 4

In a book that I'm reading now, it said that Galileo was NOT banished for the suggestion of the Earth revolving around the Sun. This was first suggested by Copernicus around 1516-17. Apparently, Galileo was banished because he taunted Catholic doctrine/dogma, and he made fun of the Pope. The Church has apologized for this, but it was within the last 50 years.

Answer 5

Galileo got into trouble because he published his work without first getting it cleared by the Jesuit University in Rome. The idea that the Earth orbited the sun was not new and the church at the time did not have a problem with it. The dispute was between Galileo and another old queen at the JU about who was the cleverest. Some things never change.

Answer 6

The Catholic church is open to discussion of any issue now, whereas way back when it didn't affect us, they weren't.

Laws are always changing to the changing needs of society, not just Catholic law. There were many laws that were harsh in the 1600's, and before and after. Why on earth would a man have a hand cut off, or worse yet death, for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving family.

Why would a depressed or very happy woman be burned at the stake for being a witch?

Why were natives of any land forced by conquerers into a life style that was fatal and diseased from a free and productive life style?

It wasn't just the Catholics who made unfair judgements in history. And it isn't just the teachings of the Catholic church that are unfair today.

Answer 7

99.999999% of all people thought that, at that time. It was not church doctrine, it was, as all things, what was believed at the time by the majority of all people.

Btw, the average person would have no way of knowing one way or the other and surely most could careless, at that time. Even today as we now know that the earth revolves around the Sun, so what? To the average person, in their everyday life this info has no effect. And so, so what?

It's like being able to quote Shakespeare, that's great, and the average person could careless. It is totally useless.

Answer 8

I do not like the pope, though he has a good taste for shoes. But you quote him wrong. He tried to explain that given the circumstances, the Galileo trial was justifiable. Rather clumsy if you ask me.
The central point of the trial was that the Church felt it was losing its grip on science. Of course they could not allow that and showed the typical reaction of conservatives: last stand fight.
Of course the rcc has other doctrines and points of view that are wrong: they were wrong on the reformation, colonialism, slavery, racial theories, nazism and rock and roll, just to name a few. At the moment they are fighting their last ditch fight on STD's, gays, birth control and celibacy.
I do not think they will ever give up on transsubstantiation and the trinity. The virginity of mary is somewhat dubious in this aspect.

I wish you a fine day.

Answer 9

Since Jesus walked the Earth, there has been no organization or institution which has lied and misled more people than the Catholic Church. That church (it is almost blasphemous even to call it a church) does virtually everything contrary to what was chronicled in the Bible, which is the very document they claim to be the foundation of their organization. It is the same Bible that the catholic church killed thousands of people over time, just for owning it. This is the same church that cannot seem to get rid of the pedophiles that seem to gravitate toward its pagan doctrines. (You know them by their fruits)

The list of anti-doctrines that are taught by the catholic church are many. Pardon my tirade, but evil is evil, and God told us through His Word, "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD." And if any of you out there can somehow justify pedophilia or the tolerance of it (I am speaking to you catholics) then you are an abomination to God, no matter what your phony religion says.

I'll give you a complete list if you really want to know. All it takes is an email.

Answer 10

The church did not acknowledge Galileo as correct until Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Interesting.