Had2 wrote:
 Mass Noun wrote-He was, in fact, forced to recant and died under house arrest. I do not expect you to take as fact the overwhelming evidence for this event over Catholic Propaganda.
Well there you go assuming again..
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

Had2,

George Coyne, former Director of the Vatican Observatory, head of the observatory's research group and Jesuit Priest disagrees. In his paper: The Church's Most Recent Attempt to Dispel the Galileo Myth (which I recommend reading) he gives quite a thorough synopsis of events and reasons surrounding the Galileo affair. It is well written and thoroughly footnoted.

He writes:

Just 350 years before, Pope Urban VIII had declared that Galileo had made
himself guilty of an "opinion very false and very erroneous and which had
given scandal to the whole Christian world.


And:

The point, however, is that the majority of theologians of that epoch did not
even know of the existence of a new science, did not know its methods, nor
did they feel obliged to respect the freedom of scientific research. Galileo and
others of his time (Kepler, Castelli, Campanella, etc.) were ahead of their time
in proposing freedom of scientific research. (Galileo wrote of it in the
Letter to Castelli and in the Letter to Christina). It took a
long time, with the development of modern science, before this became an
accepted principle. It would have carried no weight, therefore, with the
theologians of Galileo's day, either during the events of 1616 or those of
1632-1633. It is, furthermore, claimed in the Papal address that the error of
the theologians was due to their failure to "recognize the distinction
between Sacred Scripture and its interpretation." This cannot be correct.
Since the time of Augustine, this distinction was well-established and it was
taught in all schools of exegesis at the time of Galileo. In fact, in 1616 the
qualifiers/consultors of the Holy Office knew this distinction and made use of
it in formulating their philosophical-theological opinion on
Copernicanism. 




  

"Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe."

Zappa