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What we read above, the position of a priestly society that profess to be as traditional as the priests of the Council of Trent, shows me they, and many others, are ill-informed victims of what I call the Galilean Reformation. They in fact state that the Bible is not a revealer of natural things. That said, they have no problem with the science of natural things deciding what the Bible really means.


In order to understand what I call the Galilean Reformation in the Church, I have compiled a summary of this reformation.

The Church and Science

For centuries now the ‘Galileo affair’ has been one of the most recorded conflicts in the history of Church and science. Few today are unaware of that dispute between the astronomer Galileo and the Catholic Church in the Seventeenth century. In nearly every case it is depicted as an astronomical argument, Galileo insisting the sun orbits the Earth in a solar system and the Church insisting the sun and stars move around a fixed Earth. At that time the Catholic Church had much temporal power as well as within the religion itself. In 1633 Galileo was found guilty of ‘suspicion of heresy’ by the Roman Inquisition and kept in house arrest for the remaining nine years of his life. In 1687 Isaac Newton produced his theory of gravitation that insisted the Earth had to orbit the sun, and in 1726 came the discovery of stellar aberration by James Bradley, also said by nearly all philosophers to show the Earth has to orbit the sun. What happened then we will let a papal commission tell:

In 1741, in the face of optical proof of the fact that the Earth revolves round the sun, Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) had the Holy Office grant an imprimatur to the first edition of the Complete Works of Galileo.’ --- Pope John Paul II Commission report: L’Osservatore Romano, November 4^th, 1992.

Thus began the 96 year retreat by popes and churchmen, inferring the Church was wrong in its condemnation of Galileo and his science. Since then, in the realm of Church and science, it followed that all now agreed the Church got it wrong and should never be allowed forget that. Indeed the Catholic Church could now be accused of interfering with the progress of science. This suited churchmen, so long as the Galileo case was confined to science and science alone. As they all keep repeating, the divine guidance of the Church in no way covers opinions on physical matters. Arising from this new policy of stating the Church has no autonomy over science; churchmen in effect also contradicted the Church’s duty to protect the flock from false philosophy. Thus when the newly accepted heliocentrism gave rise to the first theory of evolution, the Nebular Theory, churchmen had to watch the Copernican Principle contradict further aspects of the literal Genesis. Terrified of getting their Faith and science wrong once again they remained silent on the matter of long ages and the evolution of everything.

Church and Cannon Law

There is of course another aspect to the Galileo affair less well known throughout history, why the Catholic Church of Tradition insisted the sun and stars rotate around the Earth. It was because the Scriptures portray an orbiting sun in many places and it is a dogma of the Catholic Church that every word of the Catholic Bible is inspired and guided by God and thus is the absolute truth. Galileo said he had proof that the Earth was a planet going around the sun and thus the Bible should be interpreted different to that reading of it by all the Fathers. But the Council of Trent had decreed that any interpretation held by all the Fathers is an infallible truth and cannot be changed. Galileo insisted his interpretation of Scripture was correct in two famous letters, and it was this that caused the Church to react. In 1616, Pope Paul V, as Prefect of the Holy Office, approved the finding that the Scriptures do state a moving sun and accordingly defined Galileo’s biblical heliocentrism formal heresy. Cardinal Bellarmine warned Galileo never again to propose a heliocentric reading of Scripture as a truth. All books that proposed heliocentrism as a truth of science and thus the Bible were put on the forbidden book Index.

  In 1633 Galileo wrote a book named Dialogue that again suggested heliocentrism was correct and this led to his trial and conviction as a ‘suspected heretic.’

The Canonical Problem

History records that in 1820 Pope Pius Vii approved the publication of a book that asserted heliocentrism as a truth of science and that the geocentrism of the Bible was falsely interpreted, that it merely described the sun moves because it looks like it is moving. Pope Pius VII even ordered any churchman who opposed heliocentric books was to be disciplined. In 1835, Pope Gregory XVI removed the last four forbidden heliocentric books from the Index, ‘without explicit comment.’

‘In 1820, Canon Settele lodged an appeal [to obtain an imprimatur for his heliocentric book] with Pope Pius VII (1800-1823)… In 1822 a favourable decision was given. This papal decision was to receive its practical application in 1835 [under Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846)] with the publication of a new and updated index [emptied of all heliocentric books].’ --- Galileo Commission, 1981-1992.

Now why did Pope Gregory XVI make ‘no comment?’ It was because of the canonical implications of this infamous U-turn, the only case of its kind in the history of the Holy Office. You see when a pope defines and declares a matter of faith or morals, it is guaranteed by divine protection to be a truth and ‘irreversible.’ And, as Cardinal Bellarmine said, the true meaning of Scripture is of Faith. This ‘irreversibility’ would be defined as ‘infallibility’ at Vatican Council I in 1870. However, as we see above in the Pontifical Commission’s findings, Pope Paul V’s ‘irreformable’ decree was believed to be proven wrong by the progress of science.

The Catholic Retreat

From 1835, if not earlier, there was only one way to ‘save the Catholic Church’s infallibility’ to put it in a nutshell; deny the 1616 decree defining a fixed sun biblical interpretation as formal heresy. Throughout the centuries every reason one could think of was used to deny the 1616 decree was an infallible decree. Any Catholic worth his or her salt felt it was their duty to deny Pope Paul V’s definition was ‘irreversible.’ Given the Church’s divine protection depended on this denial, history abounds with hundreds of book, articles, letters and opinions all asserting the 1616 decree was not papal, not binding, merely a provisional recommendation until science decided the matter. Unless all could be convinced of this, then the Galileo case would show the dogma of papal infallibility was proven false by science. Let there be no mistake, this remains the position of churchmen and laity up to this very day, as can be witnessed by the position the SSPX have put on public display.

The ‘Inside Story’
Now while churchmen can err, according to the teaching of the Church, it cannot. Only in the last 50 years have the records of the 1741-1835 Uturn been released from the secret archives to scholars. What occurred in the Holy Office in 1820, as recorded, was both Catholic and shocking. It was Catholic in that they agreed the 1616 decree defining biblical heliocentrism was papal and irreversible. It was shocking in that the same Maurizio Benedetto Olivieri, a Dominican friar, Commissary General of the Inquisition’s Holy Office and professor of Old Testament studies at La Sapienza University, said while the heliocentrism of 1616 was heretical; the corrected heliocentrism of 1820 was not heretical. This ‘invention’ allowed him to recommend to Pope Pius VII that he accept the new science and thus the new ‘corrected’ interpretation of Scripture Thus the Holy Office, the Church in effect, accepted the 1616 decree was infallible, and remains infallible, saving the dogma of infallibility, while at the same time allowing the heliocentrism they believed was proven by science to be accepted as a truth of faith and science. You couldn’t make it up, could you?

  Now nobody outside the Holy Office knew of this decision, so they had to continue saving their Church’s infallibility by asserting that the ‘falsified by science’ 1616 decree was not papal and had no canonical authority at all. John Henry Newman was one influential churchman who insisted in his writings that the 1616 decree ‘decided next to nothing.’ Search 10,000 opinions in book, journals (like Angelus Press), articles and websites and you will find this version of the Galileo case all repeating the Newman version.

The Science of Heliocentrism

In 1887 there occurred an experiment in science that failed to prove the Earth orbits the sun. Try as they did, many times, the result was the same, no evidence that the earth orbits the sun at 70,000mph. Meanwhile, ‘scientific’ minded exegetes were reinterpreting Genesis according to every scientific theory they could think up. Just like they claimed the Earth was proven to orbit the sun, science was now insisting the universe and Earth were billions of years old.

First Encyclical on Biblical Understanding

Pope Leo XIII decided to put a stop to it by issuing an encyclical on Biblical interpretation. Six years after the Mitchelson & Morely experiment showed the Earth is not orbiting the sun, in 1893 the Pope issued his Encyclical Providentissimus Deus. In this Letter the Pope reiterated every word of the Bible is true. However, with the infamous Galileo case in mind, when churchmen accepted a heliocentric reading of Scripture instead of the traditional literal geocentric interpretation, the Pope had to address this U-turn in biblical exegesis. And so it was that he inserted Galileo’s reasoning that said it was all right to ‘depart from the literal sense’ if science proved the literal was misinterpreted. This passage was and is still used in hundreds of books, articles and websites as approval and confirmation of Galileo’s heliocentric reinterpretation of Scripture due to heliocentrism as proven. Meanwhile in the halls of science they were tearing their hair out at that 1887 science test that showed no such proof was ever found.  

Albert Einstein

Now when it comes to science, Albert Einstein is considered to have been one of the most intelligent scientists of all time. For 18 years, he and every other physicist on Earth had tried to cope with the ongoing M&M experiment that showed the Earth does not orbit the Sun. They could not find any scientific flaw in the test but could not face the fact that geocentrism was the only conclusion. Who would rescue heliocentrism for them? That task fell to Einstein who using his ad hoc theories of relativity gave heliocentrism a new lease of life in his 1905 Special Theory of Relativity. In other words the scientific world had to accept that heliocentrism was never proven false, and had invented ad hocs to save the possibility that the Earth is a planet in a solar system. Einstein’s ad hocs have long been falsified. Indeed his relativity has been put to the test by way of Stellar Aberration, the only observance that includes the Earth, sun and stars. This test showed that the geocentric order cannot be explained in a heliocentric way. What really matters is that science now admits heliocentrism was never proven nor geocentrism falsified.

The Consequences of Einstein’s Confession

History records that the U-turn of 1741-1835 was based on proof that the literal geocentric interpretation of Scripture by tradition, all the Fathers and Pope Paul V’s decree was proven false, as confirmed so many times especially in 1992:

In 1741, in the face of optical proof of the fact that the Earth revolves round the sun, Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) had the Holy Office grant an imprimatur to the first edition of the Complete Works of Galileo.’ --- Pope John Paul II Commission report: L’Osservatore Romano, November 4^th, 1992.

Now the world has know officially since 1905 no such proof exists, yet not one Church body or person has seen the consequences of this in regard to the 1616 decree, the 1633 trial of Galileo, nor the acceptance of what was defined as formal heresy as the true interpretation of Scripture. Nor was there any recognition that Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical inferred Galileo was right and his exegesis could be used to reinterpret literal revelations of Scripture. Then there was the reputation of all the churchmen of 1616 and 1633 that had been ridiculed for their ignorance over the years. Finally, the accusation of centuries that the Catholic Church had impeded the progress of science turns out to be false. Nevertheless, nobody seemed to understand or wanted to admit the U-turn was the real error of the Galileo case and that it was as false in Faith as it was in science.  

1920: Spiritus Paraclitus

On the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the death of St Jerome (347-420), the greatest Doctor in the exposition of the Scriptures, the saint who compiled the Church’s Bible around the year 400, Pope Benedict XV issued the encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus. It seems Pope Leo XIII’s Providentissimus Deus did not halt the attacks on Scripture (how could it as it gave licence to science to correct ‘misinterpretations.’) so Pope Benedict felt he had to try. Spiritus Paraclitus came down like a ton of bricks on all aspects of reinterpreting the literal. Every single word and phrase of Scripture was the word of God and the Pope confirms that even ‘profane knowledge’ recorded in the Scriptures is ‘intended and taught by God,’ and is absolutely true. Not one concession to any reinterpretation is to be found in this encyclical.

Scientific Theories of the 20^th century

In spite of Einstein’s admittance that geocentrism was as scientifically true as heliocentrism, the world of Church and State continued to promulgate the heliocentric scenario as true. When the Jesuit priest Monsignor Abbé Georges Lemaître, friend of Einstein, proposed the Big Bang and billions of years of evolution theory, he became a hero scientist of the Catholic Church. Wikipedia tells us ‘By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory provided a scientific validation for Catholicism.

1943 Divino Afflante Spiritu

In 1943, Pope Pius XII unveiled Divino Afflante Spiritu, the third encyclical on biblical studies since 1835 when a geocentric interpretation of Scripture by the Church was deemed an erroneous one and that certain natural subjects in Scripture would be better understood if they accorded with the findings of science. It was also 38 years after science admitted that the heliocentrism condemned by the Church as formal heresy in 1616 was never proven wrong. Nevertheless, churchmen carried on as though it was proven wrong and that the science developed from that heliocentrism was Gospel truth. This encyclical began with the usual warnings and decrees that the Bible was inspired by God and every word in it was true. Immediately after this the encyclical repeated Pope Leo XIII’s Galilean reformation that goes like so.

‘3. ‘The first and greatest care of Leo XIII was to set forth the teaching on the truth of the Sacred Books and to defend it from attack. Hence with grave words did he proclaim that there is no error whatsoever if the sacred writer, speaking of things of the physical order “went by what sensibly appeared” as the Angelic Doctor says, speaking either “in figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even among the most eminent men of science.”’

Yes, like ‘sunset and sunrise.’ It seems the restriction on reinterpretation of the Scriptures as ordered by Pope Benedict XV was at an end. We shall let another comment on this reversal:

‘This freeze endured until in 1943 Pius XII’s great encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu reopened the door to the use of modern methods of biblical study and established scholarship in the scientific investigation of the Scriptures. The Pontifical Biblical Commission was quick to follow this initiative with a letter to Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris… taking this as an encouragement to revisit areas which had been blocked off by earlier decisions… stressing that in the context of the times it would have been unwise to teach a particular doctrine, but not that a particular doctrine was untrue or incorrect …No responsible biblical scholar would today agree with any of these directives of the Biblical Commission.’--- Henry Wansbrough OSB (current member of the PBC: The Centenary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ampleforth Journal, autumn 2003.

Here above then, in an encyclical quoted by the SSPX as Catholic teaching, is a continuation of the Galilean Reformation, where a heretical heliocentric science is promoted as an exegete of Scripture.

Needless to say, the Vatican II popes continued the promotion of Galileo and his heliocentrism as a Catholic hero and long forgotten or rejected is that admittance from science in 1905 that the irreversible decree of 1616 was never proven wrong. So then, with popes since 1741 failing to uphold the decree of their predecessor, a failing condemned at Vatican II, the Catholic Church’s credibility will continue to decline as it has since the first heresy of Modernism entered the womb of the Church in 1741. as I said earlier, the SSPX are victims of a false belief in line with that of numerous popes.

You keep mentioning an alleged irreversible decree of 1616.

Here's a page with all the docuмents related to Galileo from 1616.

http://douglasallchin.net/galileo/library/1616docs.htm

Which of these docuмents are you claiming is "irreversible" or "infallible"?