Aryabhatt (Elder)

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>This is an old chestnut.  As I can recollect, what actually happned
>was this:  The Church had independently by the time of Galileo begun
>cautiously to accept the Copernican view.   The pope was consulted at
>the time and it was decided that if Galileo included a mention of the
>possible alternative/traditional view he would have had the blessing
>of the Church.   The pope wrote something for Galileo who in his
>arrogance ridiculed the pope -- he labelled the person supposed to be
>giving those views "simplicio" -- idiot, in modern parlance.  This so
>incensed the pope as a direct insult, permission to publish was
>withdrawn and Galileo was ordered to "recant".   The matter was
>therefore less of a question doctrinal heresy than a clash of
>personalities, typified by two arrrogant people who both thought they
>were right.

The issue is slightly more complicated than a clash of personalities. This
may have been part of the problem, but not all. It is true that lectures
based on Copernicus's original manuscript were given before Clement VII, who
even approved of the work. However, opponents of a heliocentric system
included not only Roman Catholics but also leaders of the Reformation. The
shift in thinking required for accepting the new model was problematic for
all Christians, not just for Roman Catholics. When Copernicus's work was
finally published in Leipzig, the publisher added his own disclaimer, saying
that the new system was only a convenient hypothesis that simplified
computations. Between Clement VII in 1536 and Urban VIII in 1642, the
Catholic church had gone through some tumultous times and had hardened its
attitude towards many issues.

It took a while for the ramifications of the new theory to sink in. The
larger issue was that a belief in the Copernican system severely threatened
both the undue reliance of Christian theology on Aristotle, and the old idea
that the earth is the fixed center of the universe. And it remains true that
it was only a few years ago that the Catholic church formally admitted that
Galileo was right. I daresay that they had unofficially admitted it much
earlier. After all, the Vatican funds and oversees a number of modern
astronomical research projects in the USA. On a different scientific issue,
note that the battle between creationism and evolution continues, mostly in
the American "Bible belt."

Vidyasankar

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