Statue of Galileo Planned for Vatican

Reservoir Hill writes "Four hundred years after it put Galileo on trial for heresy the Vatican is to complete its rehabilitation of the scientist by erecting a statue of him inside Vatican walls. The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated. He was held there while awaiting trial in 1633 for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The move coincides with a series of celebrations in the run-up to next year's 400th anniversary of Galileo's development of the telescope. In January Pope Benedict XVI called off a visit to Sapienza University, Rome, after staff and students accused him of defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. The Vatican said that the Pope had been misquoted and since the episode, several of the professors have retracted their protest."

Comments

Thunderbolt and lightning! Very very frightening!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Galileo!

Re:They've got to be kidding

[mh1997]

These kind of news really pisses me off. A statue to Galileo 400 years late? WTF?

Well, to be fair, they are erecting a statue of Bob Johnson. Never heard of him, according to prophets, he is going to do something great in 400 years.

That should pretty much even things out for you.

Re:cool

[Himring]

You are correct. In fact, it seems that the vast majority of Christian institutions, and institutions of other religions, do not take issue with evolution.

You must be new here. Everyone who ever posts on /. knows that all Christians, theists and, basically, anyone religious -- or who has ever been religious at all -- is a complete, uneducated moron. No one who has ever believed theistically has ever contributed anything, whatsoever, to science, knowledge, understanding or the promotion of the human race.

There, I said it. Now do me!