Analysis of 1992 John Paul II speech on the Galileo Myth
The study commission and its frustration that John Paul II changed NOTHING Magisterially on the condemnations of Galileo, Heliocentrism, and Copernicus...
Part 1
Part 2
Real Catholic answers about Galileo and The 1992 St. John Paul II speech... just for Joe Heschmeyer and Trent Horn!
"An analysis of St. John Paul II 's 1992 speech on Galileo " from Galileo Was Wrong the Church Was Right : Volume III, Chapter 16...by Dr. Robert Sungenis
At https://www.journeytothecenteroftheuniverse.org/
"An Analysis of John Paul II’s 1992 Speech on Galileo
After receiving the commission’s results in 1990, as noted above, the pope gave a short speech on the Galileo matter to the Pontifical Academy of Science in October 1992. With little surprise, the world’s newspapers invariably interpreted whatever the pope said in his speech as a complete and utter concession to Galileo.
The Los Angeles Times headline read:
“Earth Moves for Vatican in Galileo Case – Vatican Admits Error in 17th Century Case.”
The Washington Post chimed: “Vatican Says Galileo Right After All – Three Centuries Later, Pope Admits Error.”
The opening paragraph of the Arlington Catholic Herald followed suit: “Pope John Paul II formally acknowledged that the church erred when it condemned 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei for maintaining that the earth revolved around the sun.”
Suffice it to say, the reality is somewhat different. As it stands, the 1992 speech was a private affair between the pope and the Academy, but it goes without saying that the larger audience, even if uninvited, was the rest of the world, for surely all were waiting to hear the pope’s personal verdict on one of the most famous and controversial cases in ecclesiastical history.
If there is any official level to the pope’s speech, the Vatican has not specified what it is, but we assume that it has at least some lower level of authority. For the time being it is probably best to call it the Church’s most recent prudential judgment on the Galileo affair, pending a more definitive judgment in the future. What we know for certain, however, is that the 1992 speech is the Church’s most involved and most public dealing with the Galileo affair in close to two centuries.340
Although the Vatican has not specified that this papal speech carries any particular ecclesiastical authority, the mere fact that it came from the pope who represents both the authority of the Church and his papal predecessors, means that the speech carries its own practical and pastoral weight, for a pope must be very judicious about the things he says, even if they are not definitively expressed, for the masses invariably interpret them as the voice of the Church. In addition, even though the pope himself may not have been the actual author of the speech, nevertheless, he must necessarily take responsibility for his own spoken words, for it is to him, not his underlings, that we look for the Church’s position.341 If the speech was prepared for the pope, it would be well to scrutinize it in light of who was the most influential person on the papal commission of authors. In this case, the pope indicates that Cardinal Paul Poupard bears most of the responsibility for the historical and scientific information contained in the speech, since the pope stated clearly: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Cardinal Poupard, who was entrusted with coordinating the Commission’s research in its concluding phase.”342 This may have been one of the reasons that the speech was originally written in French, since Cardinal Poupard is not only French, but when the commission was formed he was the Archbishop of Paris and the president of the Institut Catholique in Paris.343 By Poupard’s own admission, he went into the investigation believing that Galileo was right and the Church was wrong. In 1992 he stated:
“The philosophical and theological qualifications, abusively attributed to the new theories regarding the centrality of the sun and the mobility of the earth, were the consequence of a period of transition in the realm of the knowledge of astronomy, and an exegetical confusion regarding cosmology….We need to recognize there errors as Your Holiness asked.”344
As such, if there are some errors of fact in the papal speech, it is Cardinal Poupard who shares the brunt of the responsibility. As we will see, there are, indeed, quite a few such factual errors, as well as an equal number of erroneous conclusions from those errors.
Still, some hold that “neither the final report nor the papal discourse appear to reflect the majority of the conclusions which are enunciated in the official publications of the Commission,” which again suggests that the commission originally intended to be much more lenient on Galileo and much harder on the Church than what the papal speech turned out to be.345
A Logical and Inevitable Warning to the Church
Before we analyze the pope’s speech, we need to reiterate one important point. If an individual is predisposed to believe that the heliocentric model is correct and that the popes and cardinals of the 1600s were in error in condemning Galileo, this stance not only creates an unbearable tension between the popes of today and the popes of the past, but it also, ironically, calls into question the ability of present popes and cardinals to judge the issue correctly, or to judge any issue correctly, barring a clear declaration of infallibility. The average man in the street sees this logic quite clearly. For example, the article in the Challenge periodical noted above (“Pope Calls For Reexamination Of Galileo Case In Important Speech On Science”) mentions this conundrum for the pope in its opening statement:
“Pope John Paul II has done nothing less than call into question the decisions of his predecessors on the case of Galileo. Many will argue that if his predecessors could be wrong on such an important matter as the relationship between Catholic teaching and science, what guarantee is there that Pope John Paul II himself is not wrong in what he teaches about human rights and other matters?346”
The concern of the Challenge reporter is logical. Once it is posited that the former theologians of the Catholic Church made a pastoral error by refusing to listen to science and insisting on a literal interpretation of Scripture, this assessment, by force of logic, leaves today’s theologians of the Catholic Church open to an equal but opposite error.
That is, theythemselves may be refusing to listen to the scientific evidence against their view, and, consequently, they may be giving the wrong pastoral advice to their flock by erroneously promoting a non-literal interpretation of Scripture. This is the inevitable trap into which Church officials fall when they question or reject previous high-level decisions in the ecclesiastical tradition. In short, no one can deny this simple logic: if those of the past can err, then those of the present can err. To be more specific, if the popes of the seventeenth century who approved the condemnations against heliocentrism could err, then current popes who approve the reigning opinions of modern science can also err.
Ironically, the modern Church is ‘hoist by its own petard,’347 for if the Holy Spirit, who does not lie, was not guiding the aforementioned popes and their Sacred Congregations during the inquisition of Galileo on an issue of such great pastoral importance, how can we be sure the Holy Spirit is guiding the present pastors of the Church? In fact, we are left with an even more haunting question: if the Holy Spirit was not guiding the pastors of the past, then who was guiding them? The intractable nature of this problem is reinforced by the fact that, according to the modern Church, neither the seventeenth century papal sanction against Copernicanism, namely, that it was “formally heretical” “erroneous in faith” and “opposed to Scripture,” nor the twentieth century papal speech that “theologians did not recognize the formal distinction between Sacred Scripture and its interpretation,” are, to use Cardinal Poupard’s own word, “irreformable.” As much as John Paul II, who, by common accounts personally believed in heliocentrism, desired to correct what he understood were the errors of the past, he inadvertently admits that he himself is subject to error in judging the past. In a public but unofficial speech to journalists in May 1983, John Paul II stated:
“ To you who are preparing to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the publication of the great work of Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, I would like to say that the experience lived by the Church at the time of and following upon the Galileo case, has permitted a maturing and more concrete understanding of the authority which is proper of the Church. Thus is it understood more clearly that divine Revelation, of which the Church is guarantor and witness, does not involve as such any scientific theory of the universe and the assistance of the Holy Spirit does not in any way come to guarantee explanations which we might wish to maintain on the physical constitution of reality. That the Church was able to go ahead with difficulty in a field so complex, should neither surprise nor scandalize. The Church, founded by Christ who has declared himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, remains nonetheless composed of limited human beings who are an integral part of their cultural epoch.348”
Although, on the one hand, this statement could be understood as John Paul II’s realization that divine revelation does not address issues such as whether nature operates on the basis of Quantum Mechanics, String Theory or Einsteinian Relativity, on the other hand, the implication is strong that John Paul is speaking about the Galileo affair and saying that the seventeenth century ecclesiastical authorities made their alleged mistakes because they were “limited human beings who [were] an integral part of their cultural epoch.” Odd as it may seem coming from a pope of the Catholic Church, this statement appears to divest these clerical authorities of any guidance or protection from the Holy Spirit. It is as if in order to get the Church off the hook, as it were, John Paul II resorts to saying that God ignored the Church for an indefinite period of time, and which, unfortunately, resulted in the Church succumbing to the dark side of the “culture” of that day.
Needless to say, it is a frightening scenario that John Paul visualizes here. Those who think deeply about the implications of what he is saying cannot honestly draw any long-term comfort from it. It inevitably makes every “reformable” teaching of the Church come under the black cloud of suspicion, including the “reformable” teachings of John Paul II himself.
In brief, the problems with John Paul II’s assessment of the situation in his May 1983 speech are threefold. First, the “cultural epoch” of John Paul II is no more certain of the “physical constitution of reality” than the cultural epoch from four centuries prior. For example, as we noted in Volume I, the three major scientific theories cited above (Quantum Mechanics, String Theory and Einsteinian Relativity) diametrically contradict one another. We have also seen that Einsteinian Relativity has declared its native inability to tell us which of the two major celestial bodies, the sun and the Earth, revolves around the other, since both space and movement, by definition, are relative. At least the seventeenth century prelature had a conviction of which celestial body was revolving and which was not, and they based it on Scripture and Tradition. Second, the “limited human beings” in the Church whom John Paul II says were responsible for these alleged miscues are, unfortunately, still with us in the Church today, regardless how much they seek to elevate themselves above their 17th century counterparts.
Modern society, including the moral scandals and loss of faith that even John Paul II admitted were concurrent with his own pontificate, is certainly no closer to God than those who lived four centuries prior.349 As such, as much as Paul V and Urban VIII are considered “limited human beings,” so John Paul II cannot escape the same “limitation,” especially on the coattails of the confusing array of theories in modern science. Third, in faulting the prelature of the past, John Paul II puts himself in the dubious position of having to choose the lesser of two evils to exonerate the Church at large. On the one hand, if it is accepted that his papal predecessors were wrong in condemning heliocentrism, then, although John Paul saves the modern Church on one count, he inevitably makes it a miserable failure on another count, for he now has the insurmountable problem of explaining how the Church of the past, which claimed to be guided by the Holy Spirit just as much as the Church of the present, could have been duped into thinking that true cosmology was even addressed by Scripture, much less erroneously concluding that the sun revolved around the Earth. No appeal to the “cultural epoch” is going to explain why all the Fathers, all the medievals, all the popes, all the saints, all the doctors, all the theologians and all the parishioners of the Catholic Church for almost the last two millennia could be led into such a stark and raving error regarding the interpretation of Scripture and the revolutions of the heavenly bodies until modern science (most of which is atheistic and totally confused itself as to how the universe operates, along with a Catholic Church since Vatican II that has certainly not exhibited the highest moral and doctrinal standards we have seen in previous ecclesiastical eras) came along to enlighten us to the indisputable and irreformable truth, respectively.
That is the first of the two evils. The second of the two evils is this: if John Paul’s papal predecessors were right, it is obviously even more devastating for the Church at large, for: (a) John Paul II would be in error in stating that the previous Church was in error; (b) he would be in error in believing heliocentrism is true; (c) he would be in error in not discovering his two-fold error; (d) he would demonstrate that he, not the Church of the past, was not being guided by the Holy Spirit, at least in regard to personal opinions such as those he expressed in May 1983 and October 1992 to the world’s scientists.
How Then Should the Church Proceed?
Well then, are we doomed to pick the lesser of two evils? The answer is no. Fortunately, there is a way out of this dilemma, and it will come, ironically, from none other than John Paul II himself as he gives the admonition in his 1992 speech to the Pontifical Academy of Science. He states:
“It is a duty for theologians to keep themselves regularly informed of scientific advances in order to examine…whether or not there are reasons for taking them into account in their reflection or for introducing changes in their teaching.350”
Keeping “regularly informed of scientific advances” so that theologians can “introduce changes in their teaching” is precisely what our book is encouraging modern theologians to do. The same direction was given by Cardinal Casaroli, the then Vatican Secretary of State, to the pope’s Galileo commission on July 3, 1981. It stated at the outset that there should be neither an intention to overturn the decisions of the seventeenth century popes nor to craft a rehabilitation of Galileo. The marching orders were simply to “rethink” the Galileo affair. As Casaroli put it:
"The aim of the various groups should be to rethink the whole Galileo question, with complete fidelity to historically documented facts and in conformity to the doctrine and culture of the time, and to recognize honestly, in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and of the quoted speech of John Paul II, rights and wrongs from whatever side they come. This is not to be the review of a trial or a rehabilitation, but a serene and objectively founded reflection, in the context of today’s historical-cultural epoch.351”
Essentially, this means that Galileo affair is open; it has not ended.
We await a final resolution to it. Thus, as we “rethink” the Galileo affair and theologians begin to see that there is no scientific proof for heliocentrism and that geocentrism has much more scientific credibility than previously reported, they will, as John Paul II admonished them, have enough information to “introduce changes in their teaching” as they consider the facts of science in a whole new way, leading, hopefully, to a moratorium on apologizing for the popes and cardinals of the seventeenth century and, in turn, giving them the respect they are due as stewards of the Gospel who promoted the inerrancy of Holy Writ.
Once an honest, studious and open-minded analysis is made of the scientific evidence, one will be able to see that the Holy Spirit was, indeed, behind the scenes guiding the Church of yesteryear to censor moving-Earth cosmology and, in turn, insist that we take Scripture’s propositions at face value. Without scientific proof for heliocentrism, today’s Church is under no obligation to entertain it as more than a curious hypothesis, and, consequently, she is neither under divine compulsion nor can she claim any justifiable reason to abandon the literal interpretation of Scripture. As St. Augustine once said:
“But if they are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture…is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions.352”
Suffice it to say, modern science has never provided the world with “proofs that cannot be denied” to back up its steadfast devotion to heliocentrism. In that light, Pope Leo XIII made Augustine’s teaching concerning the interpretation of Scripture into Catholic doctrine, following the Tradition of the Church:
“But he must not on that account consider that it is forbidden, when just cause exists, to push inquiry and exposition beyond what the Fathers have done; provided he carefully observes the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine – not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires.353”
Simply put, without scientific proof for heliocentrism, there is no “reason” or “necessity” to “depart from the literal and obvious sense” of Scripture. As physicist Henri Poincaré understood it from the side of science:
“We do not have and cannot have any means of discovering whether or not we are carried along in a uniform motion of translation.”354
Einstein was thus forced to conclude:
“Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification.
The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the Earth moves,” or “the sun moves and the Earth is at rest,” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems.355”
In an ironic sort of way, Einstein’s statement about the essential equality of differing “coordinate systems” is remarkably similar to what Cardinal Bellarmine told Fr. Foscarini when the latter insisted that the heliocentric system was correct. Being the astute intellectual he was, Bellarmine, like Einstein, easily saw how relativity and/or mathematics could save the appearances of either system. Bellarmine had taught astronomy in a number of Jesuit colleges.356 He knew the arguments of celestial motion on both sides of the aisle. But, going beyond relativity, he also knew that, despite the geometrical equivalence, only one system could be the correct one. Thus, to Foscarini he writes:
“First. I say that it seems to me that Your Reverence and Galileo did prudently to content yourself with speaking hypothetically, and not absolutely, as I have always believed that Copernicus spoke. For to say that, assuming the earth moves and the sun stands still, all the appearances are saved better than with eccentrics and epicycles, is to speak well; there is no danger in this, and it is sufficient for mathematicians. But to want to affirm that the sun really is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the Holy Scriptures false.”
As we have shown in the preceding volumes the evidence for why the Holy Spirit led our previous popes to condemn any model that required the Earth to move is so abundant that, in consideration of the fact that modern science has admitted both that it cannot prove heliocentrism and that geocentrism is not only a perfectly viable model but in many respects it is the more logical answer to the scientific data, it is the world that now owes an apology to the Catholic Church. In this light, Catholic scientist, author, and former professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wolfgang Smith writes:
“If there has been little debate in recent times on the subject of geocentrism, the reason is clear: almost everyone takes it for granted that the geocentrist claim is a dead issue, on a par, let us say, with the flat-Earth hypothesis. To be sure, the ancient doctrine has yet a few devoted advocates in Europe and America, whose arguments are neither trivial nor uninformed; the problem is that hardly anyone else seems to care, hardly anyone is listening. Even the biblically oriented creation-science movement, which of late has gained a certain prestige and influence, has for the most part disavowed geocentrism. The fact remains, however, that geocentrist cosmology constitutes not only an ancient, but indeed a traditional doctrine; should we not presume that as such it enshrines a perennial truth? To maintain, moreover, that this truth has nothing to say on a cosmographic plane – that the doctrine, in other words, is “merely symbolic or allegorical” – to think thus is to join the tribe of theologians who are ever willing to “demythologize” at the latest behest of the scientific establishment. It will not be without interest, therefore, to investigate whether the geocentrist claim – yes, understood cosmographically! – had indeed been ruled out of court. I shall urge that it has not. As regards the Galileo controversy, I propose to show that Galilean heliocentrism has proved to be scientifically untenable, and that in fact the palm of victory belongs to the wise saintly Cardinal Bellarmine.357”
Smith’s words are confirmed when we see the common rationale behind the thousands of histories written on the Galileo affair. All of the historians take for granted that heliocentrism has been scientifically proven. Thus they write their analyses of the historical events with that self-assured presumption as their foundation. Few, if any, have ever made a critical investigation of the purported proofs for a moving Earth. Instead, they resign themselves to parrot the status quo of modern science.
"Their treatises are repetitious attempts to turn over every rock and look into every crevice of the historical situation hoping to find the silver bullet that reveals the “real” reason why the Church was so hard on Galileo,358” yet during the entire course of their research they are totally incapable of finding that reason, for they have already dismissed the notion of a fixed Earth as a remote, if not a laughable assertion. Maurice Finocchiaro, one of the more respected Galileo historians, admits in the opening pages of his latest work that he is driven to uncover every detail of the Galileo affair because, as he says, “a key recurring question has been whether, how, and why the condemnation was right or wrong, and that is what the title Retrying Galileo is meant to convey.”359
But Finocchiaro, although he makes no claims to knowing the science, pursues his unrelenting quest believing firmly that although Galileo did not provide a valid scientific proof of the earth’s motion…this demonstration was available in 1820 after a number of other discoveries: Newton’s universal gravitation (1687), Bradley’s stellar aberration (1729), Guglielmini’s eastward deflection of falling bodies (1789-1792), and Calandrelli’s annual stellar parallax (1806).360”.
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