Church vs Copernicanism, Excerpts from the Pontifical Decrees (William Roberts)

Some Quotations From

The Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of The Earth’s Movement

and the Ultramontane Defense of Them

"1605-1621 - Reign of Pope Paul V, who issued a 1616 decree condemning Copernicanism.

1623-1644 - Reign of Urban VIII, who issued a 2nd decree [1633] condemning Copernicanism.

1655-1657 - Reign of Pope Alexander VII, who issued a Bull [1644] reinforcing that Copernicanism was heretical...." (p.1 of O’Hanlon’s 4 page intro.) [Color is my emphasis]

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"The Cardinal [Bellarmine] begins the paragraph immediately preceding the remark in question by observing that the Copernican interpretation of Scripture is already under the ban of the Council of Trent...." (p. 24. Also p.26: That Council met barely three years after Copernicus’ book was published in 1543.)

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"...the Cardinal’s opinion was reported to Galileo, most probably by Prince Cesi, in the following unmistakable terms: ‘With regard to the opinion of Copernicus, Bellarmine, who heads the Congregations that deal with such matters, told me himself that he holds it to be heretical, and that the doctrine of the earth’s motion is beyond all doubt whatever (senza dubbio alcuno) contrary to Scripture.’" (p.26)

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"...That the sun is in the centre of the world and altogether immovable by local movement," was unanimously declared to be "foolish, philosophically absurd, and formally heretical, inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the declarations of Holy Scripture in many passages, according to the proper meaning of the language used, and the sense in which they have been expounded and understood by the holy Fathers and theologians...." (p.27)

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"We say, pronounce, and declare that you, the said Galileo, on account of the things proved against you by documentary evidence, and which have been confessed by you as aforesaid, have rendered yourself to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy--that is, that you believed and held a doctrine false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures--to wit, that the sun is in the centre of the universe, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth moves and is not in the centre of the universe; and that an opinion can be held and defended as probable after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to Holy Scripture." (p.30)

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"...Urban VIII, by his decree of the 16th of June [1633], ordered a Pontifical Congregation to inform Galileo that heliocentricism had been declared and defined to be contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures in such sense that his holding it afterwards would be ‘heresy....’" (p.31)

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"...Catholics of the present day [1885] have become so habituated to Copernicanism that unless they take special pains they can do no kind of justice to the violent shock which that theory inflicted on the Catholic’s most legitimate and laudable prepossessions. Scripture, whether taken by itself, or interpreted by the traditional theology, would not lead its readers so much as to dream of any other idea, than that this earth, as it is the moral, so also is it the physical centre of the visible universe. In Scripture Statements, the earth is no satellite of the sun, but rather the sun is a satellite of the earth. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ whereas not till the fourth day did He create the sun; and then ‘that it might preside over the earth’s day,’ and shine over the earth.’" (pp.36,37)

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"The principle involves the conclusions that ‘the heavens and the earth and all that in them is’ were made in literally six days (Exod. xx.11), that the flood was literally universal, and destroyed, outside the ark, literally every living substance from off the face of the earth’ (Gen. vi. 17; vii 4, 19-23); that the doctrine of evolution in all its forms is a heresy, altogether contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures. Let anyone read Bishop Clifford’s letters in the Tablet...and he will realize how completely Rome has abandoned the ground on which she once took her stand." (Footnote p.48: And this was written in 1885! Consider what the author would be saying in these early years of the 21st century!)

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"Since it has come to the knowledge of the above-named Holy Congregation that the false Pythagorean doctrine [HERE], altogether opposed to the divine Scripture, on the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun...this Congregation has decreed that the said books...be suspended till they are corrected; but that the book of Father Paul Antony Foscarini the Carmelite be altogether prohibited and condemned, and all other books that teach the same thing; as the present decree respectively prohibits, condemns, and suspends all...."(pp.56,57)