[MD] Galileo and the church

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
The enemy of science was not the church, it was the academy.

[Arlo]
>From the Translation of the Inquisitions verdict against Galileo, a matter of
historical record.

By the grace of God, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and especially
commissioned by the Holy Apostolic See as Inquisitors-General against heretical
depravity in all of Christendom.

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, Florentine, aged
seventy years, were denounced to this Holy Office in 1615 for holding as true
the false doctrine taught by some that the sun is the center of the world and
motionless and the earth moves even with diurnal motion; for having disciples
to whom you taught the same doctrine; for being in correspondence with some
German mathematicians about it; for having published some letters entitiled On
Sunspots, in which you explained the same doctrine as true; for interpreting
Holy Scripture according to your own meaning in response to objections based on
Scripture which were sometimes made to you; and whereas later we received a
copy of an essay in the form of a letter, which was said to have been written
by you to a former disciple of yours and which in accordance with Copernicus's
position contains various propositions against the authority and true meaning
of Holy Scripture;

And whereas this Holy Tribunal wanted remedy the disorder and the harm which
derived from it and which was growing to the detriment of the Holy Faith, by
order of His Holiness and the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinals of
this Supreme and Univesal Inquisition, the Assessor Theologians assessed the
two propositions of the sun's stability and the earth's motions as follows:

That the sun is the center of the world and motionless is a proposition which
is philosophically absurd and false, and formally heretical, for being
explicitly contrary to Holy Scripture;

That the earth is neither the center of the world nor motionless but moves even
with diurnal motion is philosophically equally absurd and false, and
theologically at least erroneous in the Faith. 

...

We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the above-mentioned Galileo,
because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have
rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy,
namely of having held and believed a doctine which is false and contrary to the
divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not
move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world,
and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been
declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture.  Consequently you have
incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated by the sacred
canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents.  We are
willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and
unfeigned faith, in front of us you abjure, curse, and detest the
above-mentioned errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary
to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, in the manner and form we will prescribe
to you. 

Furthermore, so that this serious and pernicious error and transgression of
yours does not remain completely unpunished, and so that you will be more
cautious in the future and an example for others to abstain from similar
crimes, we order that the book Dialogue by Galileo Galilei be prohibited by
public edict. 

Does that sound like the "friend" of science? 

http://web.archive.org/web/20070930013053/http://astro.wcupa.edu/mgagne/ess362/resources/finocchiaro.html#sentence

What's next? "Academics" are to blame for The Crusades? Jeez....