Gay Marriage vs Galileo: Pope described as…"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"-- The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder (2002)

In the 1633 trial of Galileo Galilei, two worlds come into cosmic conflict. Galileo's world of science and humanism collides with the world of Scholasticism and absolutism that held power in the Catholic Church. The result is a tragedy that marks both the end of Galileo's liberty and the end of the Italian Renaissance…

…Skeptics countered with the "common sense" notion that the earth they stood on appeared not to move at all--much less at the speed required to fully rotate every twenty-four hours while spinning around the sun. …

Overall, the condemnation was hardly convincing. Giorgio de Santillana, author of The Crime of Galileo, wrote of Caccini's testimony: "The whole deposition is such an interminable mass of twists and innuendoes and double talk that a summary does no justice to it."…

When depositions in the Galileo matter concluded, the Commissary-General forwarded two propositions of Galileo to eleven theologians (called "Qualifiers") for their evaluation: (1) The Sun is the center of the world and immovable of local motion, and (2) The Earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but moves according to the whole of itself, also with a diurnal motion. Four days later, on February 23, 1616, the Qualifiers unanimously declared both propositions to be "foolish and absurd" and "formally heretical." Less than two weeks later, Pope Paul V--described by the Florentine ambassador as "so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"--endorsed the theologian's conclusions…

The Trial of 1633

Galileo's admonition stopped the Copernican movement dead in its tracks. For Galileo, his admonition marked the beginning of a period of silence…and adjusted to a world which elevated mindless conformism over scientific understanding.

Read complete paper:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/galileoaccount.html

Related Links:

Galileo & Gay Marriage History Repeating

http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/pope-described-as-so-averse-to-anything_920.html

Galileo protest halts pope's [Benedict XVI] visit
January 15, 2008
Cable News Network (CNN)
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/galileo-protest-halts-popes-benedict.html


Hating Gays: An Overview of Scientific Studies – by Gregory M. Herek - Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/hating-gays-overview-of-scientific.html