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Statue of Galileo Planned for Vatican

Posted by Zonk on from the isn't-it-ironic dept.

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."

4 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. The Museum of History of Science by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The proper place for the statue is surely outside the Museum of the History of science at Florence. This ought to be on the itinerary of any self-respecting nerd visiting Italy. They have some of Galileo's own equipment, and a religious relic - a finger bone of the man himself. They have a full size model of his gravitational experiment (no jokes about cannonballs please) and the last time I visited there was an Italian school party there getting an accurate account of his experiments from their enthusiastic woman science teacher. It's even better than the Whipple in Cambridge, which is in some ways a temple to Newton, because you really get the sense of just how exciting and disruptive Galileo's thought actually was. If you read the Dialogue on Two World Systems, you rapidly realise that Galileo was a modern man who today would be on television being incredibly rude and funny about Kansas boards of education. (This is not hype. You only need to read his letters to Kepler to realise that what probably really pissed off the Pope and the Inquisition wasn't that he said they were wrong, but that he made jokes about their ideas.)

    Sadly for Giordano Bruno, he didn't have Galileo's powerful protectors and was a bit too all-out mystical. Roger Bacon just got locked up for years for suggesting that Arab science should be adopted to ease the work of the poor - can't have peasants having free time to think about things. However, the Church at least has a history of adopting ideas once they've been safely mainstream for a few hundred years. Some of the Protestant sects seem intent on actually going backwards, hence the drive towards Bible literalism (which wouldn't have been understood by most of the early Church fathers, but is a peculiar product of 19th century Protestantism separated by an ocean from its roots.)

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  2. Re:The church IS a dictatorship by ccguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm fine with the Church being a dictatorship as long as it only affects their followers. I've got a problem when they support a militar dictator that oppresses a whole country, though.

  3. Breath of fresh air... by jfbilodeau · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know the Catholic church has it's dark side in history, however, I'm very pleased that one of the worlds foremost religion is doing such a fantastic job 'respecting' science. Before you blast me with examples of how the Catholic church is blundering (big bang?), remember that they are (as far as I know), the only _major_ Christian church that supports evolution. Furthermore, I do have a lot of respect for the Jesuits and their pursuit of science. Finally, the Vatican may not 100% pro-science, but they seem far from being anti-science.

    Though I'm not Catholic (atheist), I respect the Vatican for trying to understand how science merge with their faith, instead of bending science to their faith. Considering the horror stories that I see and hear about creationist faith (cringe!), this is a breath of fresh air!

    My $0.02 CAD

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    Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
  4. Re:cool by Cossack58 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Galileo incident had nothing to do w/ evolution, but you are correct that evolution is not inconsistent w/ Church teaching. Many people misunderstand the real issue behind the problem the church had w/ Galileo. It had nothing to do w/ the basic contention that the earth revolved about the sun. Copernius (a Catholic priest) proposed heliocentricity about a 100 years before the Galileo incident. The concept was generally accepted by most educated people (including members of the Church hierarchy) at the time. Galileo strayed from purely scientific examinations to drawing *religious* conclusions based on the contradiction between scripture and scientific fact. The Vatican had asked him to refrain from drawing religious conclusions (the responsibility of the Church) and stick to scientific fact. Galileo agreed, but later fell back to the religious aspects. The Church's position was that it required time to resolve the apparent conflict b/w scripture and science. This is one reason why the Catholic Church does not promote *literal* belief in the bible. The bible's inerrent truth applies to spiritual matters only, not scientific or historical facts. A description of the sun and the rest of the universe revolving around the earth does not detract from the spiritual truth that each human soul is known individually to a loving and caring God.