The whole struggle to crush Galileo and to save him would be
amusing were it not so fraught with evil. There were intrigues and
counter-intrigues, plots and counter-plots, lying and spying; and
in the thickest of this seething, squabbling, screaming mass of
priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, appear two popes,
Paul V and Urban VIII. It is most suggestive to see in this crisis
of the Church, at the tomb of the prince of the apostles, on the
eve of the greatest errors in Church policy the world has known, in
all the intrigues and deliberations of these consecrated leaders of
the Church, no more evidence of the guidance or presence of the
Holy Spirit than in a caucus of New York politicians at Tammany Hall.
But the opposing powers were too strong. In 1615 Galileo was
summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and the mine which had
been so long preparing was sprung. Sundry theologians of the
Inquisition having been ordered to examine two propositions which
had been extracted from Galileo's letters on the solar spots,
solemnly considered these points during ahout a month and rendered
their unanimous decision as follows: "_The first proposition, that
the sun is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, is
foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because
expressly contrary to Holy Scripture"; and "the second proposition,
that the earth is not the centre but revolves about the sun, is
absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view
at least, opposed to the true faith_.
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