I have chosen to highlight this particular sentence as a representative sample of the evidently uncontrollable impulse to falsify evidence—or fantasize it into existence; take your pick—that is ever so characteristic of those soi-disant orthodox Catholics who have little to no respect, not only for Galileo, but for the successors of Peter and the Apostles who have taken the utmost care to use the power of the Keys, divinely entrusted to them, with seemly gravity.
Put plainly, there was no such statement in the "1633 magisterium," whatever that curious composite term may actually refer to (when one is going to prattle legalistically, the least he can do is stick to proper legal terminology). What there was was this: a draft docuмent, prepared for Galileo's formal abjuration, in which this claim was included with no evidentiary support whatsoever. When Galileo flatly refused to sign the abjuration, regardless of the consequences to himself, if this charge was retained, the Examiners deleted the wording (as they doubtless knew full well they had to).* Incidentally, Galileo also required the removal of the charge that he was not "a good Catholic." As the Examiners, unlike cassini and many other CathInfo commenters, lacked the remarkably useful ability to read minds, they conceded that point to Galileo, too.
The bottom line is this: the formal docuмent of abjuration signed by Galileo on June 22, 1633, did not include either a charge or an admission of an illicitly obtained imprimatur. The fact that someone cited as an authority by klasG4e gets this elementary fact wrong calls into question his reliability on everything else he writes about the affair.
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*Galileo's grounds were that, as he had acted in all candor by following to the letter the requirements for obtaining the imprimatur, to admit that he had employed false pretences would constitute the mortal sin of perjury. In addition, a false admission would make everyone else in the approval and printing process liable to severe criminal penalties—hence, another grave sin against justice.
The Trial of Galileo as told by the Rev. W. W. Roberts:
‘Every one admits that Galileo during his trial was treated with unusual indulgence; and his sentence was a much lighter one than he had reason to expect. Let us look at things from the standpoint of the court. It assumed; we must bear in mind, that the doctrinal question had been settled, and that the decision of 1616 was absolute. The issues before it were these. Had Galileo wilfully transgressed the order he was under, not to treat of heliocentrism in any manner, and did he hold and had he written advisedly in favour of that condemned opinion? If so, by the ruling of the court, his crime was heresy. ‘Galileo’s answer on the first count was that he had completely forgotten the order contained the words “teach in any manner.” And to render this statement credible he produced Bellarmine’s record of the order without the words. He had taken, he said, that certificate as a complete account of the transaction it referred to. Nor had it occurred to him to tax his memory on the subject. Further, since it was obvious that the judgement notified to him was one and the same thing with the declaration of the Index, he had not supposed himself to be under any special restriction, and had not thought it necessary to mention the order when he applied for his imprimaturs.
With regard to the second point he absolutely denied that he had meant the Dialogo to be a defence of Copernicanism. He granted that vainglory, and the desire men have to show off their cleverness in arguing even for propositions they allow to be false, had led him to give an appearance of strength to the Copernican side; but his real intent had been to show the inconclusiveness of the argument for the theory. And he begged the court to allow him to add a dialogue to the work, to make the thing quite unmistakable. But the evidence was dead against him. And we cannot wonder that the three consulters of the Holy Office, Oreggi, Inchofer and Pasqualigus protested against his defence, and declared their conviction that the accused had held, defended, and taught, the theory of the Earth’s motion [and sun’s stability]. It remained for the Pope to determine what should be done. He must have been morally sure that Galileo had not spoken the truth and had it been his object to crush the man, he might, I take it, have condemned him for heresy on the data he had. Instead of doing this, he decreed as follows:
Galileo was to be questioned about his intention. He was to be threatened with the torture even though it was never intended due to the fact it was illegal to torture anybody of Galileo’s age. If he responded to the threat and admitted his guilt, he was to be condemned - after making the abjuration “de vehementi” in a full assembly of the Holy Office - to imprisonment during the pleasure of the Sacred Congregation. An injunction was to be laid on him never again to treat of the heliocentric theory, for and against, by word of mouth or in writing, under pain of being dealt with as a relapsed heretic. The Dialogo was to be prohibited. And that all might know those things, his Holiness commanded the Congregation to send copies of the sentence to all the nuncios Apostolic, to all the Inquisitors of heretical pravity and to the Inquisitor of Florence, who was to summon mathematical professors to hear it read publicly.[1] Accordingly, on the 21st June 1633, Galileo underwent a final examination with respect to his intention in writing the Dialogo. He was asked to say whether he held or had held, and since when, that the sun is in the centre of the universe, and that the Earth is not the centre, but moves, and with a diurnal movement. He replied that before the determination of the Congregation of the Index, and until he received an order to the contrary, he had suspended his judgement on the matter, and had thought it an open question whether the truth lay with Ptolemy or Copernicus, there being no reason in the nature of things why either might not be right. But when his superiors decided the point, he ceased to doubt, and held, and continued to hold, the opinion of Ptolemy, that the Earth is fixed, and that the sun moves.
The Congregation submitted that his having written the Dialogo was inconsistent with this statement, and urged him to speak the truth. He said that his object in writing the Dialogo was to exhibit the astronomical and physical arguments that might be advanced on both sides of the controversy; and to show that, as reason could not settle the question, recourse must be had to a higher teaching – “alla determinatione di piu sublimi dettrine.” He concluded by again asserting that he did not hold the condemned opinion, and had not held it since its condemnation in 1616. He was then warned that the evidence was so strong against him, that if he did not confess, the court must have recourse to the remedies the law provided for such cases. He repeated his assertion that he had not held the opinion of Copernicus since he had been ordered to give it up: “I am in your hands, and you must do what you think fit.” He was then told, in plain terms, that if he did not speak the truth, he would be put to the torture. “I am here,” he said: “to obey. I have not held that opinion since the decision against it.” The Congregation, having so far carried out the Pope’s orders, dismissed him to his place: The next day he was summoned to the convent of the Minerva; and there, in the presence of the Cardinals and prelates of the Holy Office, the Pope Urban VIII’s sentence was pronounced:’
The Inquisition’s Sentence:
‘… “And to the end,” said the docuмent, “that so pernicious a doctrine might be altogether taken away, and spread no further to the heavy detriment of Catholic truth, a decree emanated from the Sacred Congregation of the Index in which books that treat of doctrine of the kind were prohibited, and that doctrine was declared false, and altogether contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture.” And observe in what emphatic and unmistakable terms Rome repudiated the notion that the decree might be interpreted as a practical direction, as a measure of caution for the time being, or as anything short of an absolute settlement of the question. “Understanding,” the Congregation said, “that, through the publication of a work at Florence entitled Dialogo di Galileo Galilei delle due massime Sisteme del Mundo Ptolemaico e Copernicano, the false opinion of the motion of the Earth and the stability of the sun was gaining ground, it had examined the book, and had found it to be a manifest infringement of the injunction laid on you, since you in the same book have defended an opinion already condemned, and declared to your face to be so, in that you have tried in the said book, by various devices, to persuade yourself that you leave the matter undetermined, and the opinion expressed as probable; the which, however, is a most grave error, since an opinion can in no manner be probable which has been declared, and defined to be, contrary to the divine Scripture.”
Thus the declaration of the Index - for which all the authority of an absolutely true decision was claimed - was identified with the condemnatory judgement made known to Galileo by a Congregation held in the Pope’s presence. This was significant enough, but mark what followed. “And when a convenient time had been assigned you for your defence, you produced the following certificate in the handwriting of the most eminent Lord Cardinal Bellarmine… procured, as you said, to protect you from the calumnies of your enemies, who had put it about that you had abjured, and had been punished by the Holy Office; in which certificate it is affirmed that you had not abjured, had not been punished, but only that the declaration made by our Lord the Pope, and promulgated by the Sacred Congregation of the Index; had been announced to you the tenor whereof is, that the doctrine of the motion of the Earth, and of the fixity of the sun, is contrary to the Sacred Scriptures, and therefore can neither be defended, nor held.[2] “But this very certificate produced in your defence has rather aggravated the charge against you; for it asserts that the above-mentioned opinion is contrary to Holy Scripture: yet you dared to treat of it, to defend it, and advance it as probable.” Here the Congregation plainly made it known that the decision of the Index was Papal. But in what sense Papal? In a sense according to what had been said above, to make it a most grave error to suppose that the opinion condemned thereby could in any manner be probable. In a sense, according to the sentence that followed, to justify its being classed with declarations and definitions the conclusiveness of which it would be heresy to deny. It was papal in such a way that a Catholic might be compelled to yield its doctrine the assent of faith. “Invoking, then, the most holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that of His most glorious Mother Mary ever Virgin, by this our definitive sentence we say, pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo, on account of these things proved against you by docuмentary evidence, and which have been confessed by you as aforesaid, have rendered yourself to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy,[3] that is, of having believed and held a doctrine which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures -to wit, that the sun is in the centre of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the Earth moves, and is not 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. And consequently that you have incurred all the censures and penalties decreed and promulgated by the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against delinquents of this class. From which it is our pleasure that you should be absolved, provided that, with a pure heart and faith unfeigned, you in our presence first abjure, curse, and detest, the above-named errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church, according to the formula which we shall show you. And that this your grave and pernicious error, and transgression remain not altogether unpunished, and that you may be the more cautious for the future, and be an example to others to abstain from offences of this sort, we decree that the book of the Dialogues of Galileo Galilei be prohibited by public edict; and you we condemn to the prison of this Holy Office during our will and pleasure; and, as a salutary penance, we command you for three years, to recite once a week, the seven Penitential Psalms; reserving to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting; or taking away altogether, or in part, the above-mentioned penalties and penances.”’ Galileo’s Abjuration:
“I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, aged seventy years, appearing personally before this court, and kneeing before you, the most eminent and reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General of the universal Christian Republic against heretical pravity, having before my eyes the most holy Gospels, and touching them with my hands, swear that I always have believed, and now believe, and with God’s help will always believe, all that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church holds, preaches, and teaches. But because, after this Holy Office had juridically enjoined me to abandon altogether the false opinion which holds that the sun is in the centre of the world, and immovable, and that the Earth is not the centre, and moves; and had forbidden me to hold, defend, or teach in any manner, the said false doctrine; and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine is repugnant to Holy Scripture, I wrote and caused to be printed a book, wherein I treat of the same doctrine already condemned, and adduced arguments with great efficacy in favour of it, without offering any solution of them; therefore I am judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the Earth is not the centre, and moves. Wherefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and all Catholic Christians, this vehement suspicion legitimately conceived against me, with a sincere heart and faith unfeigned, I abjure, curse, and detest, the above named errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to the above-mentioned Holy Church; and I swear for the future, I will neither say, nor assert by word of mouth, or in writing, anything to bring upon me similar suspicion. And if I shall know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor, or Ordinary of the place in which I may be. Moreover I swear, and promise, to fulfil, and observe entirely, all the penances that have been or shall be imposed on me by this Holy Office. And if -which God forbid- I act against any of these said promises, protestations, and oaths, I subject myself to all the penalties and punishments which the sacred canons, and other constitutions, general and particular, have enacted, and promulgated against such delinquents. So help me God, and His holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands. “I, Galileo Galilei above-named, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; in token whereof I have signed with my own hand this formula of my abjuration, and have recited it word by word.”‘Thus did Rome’s supreme Pontifical Congregation, established, to use the words of Sixtus V., “tanquam firmissimum Catholicae fidei propugnaculum . . . cui ob summam rei gravitatem Romanus Pontifex praesidere solet,” known to be acting under the Pope’s orders, announce to the Catholic world that it had been ruled that the Papal declaration of 1616 was to be received, not as a fallible utterance, but as an absolute sentence and abjuration, as an expression of the mind of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome, and that the Holy See regarded the opinion condemned thereby as nothing less than heresy.’
[1] Footnote p.88. In this part of the order the Pope not obscurely intimated his will that the Copernican-minded Catholics should be forced to yield assent to the decision of 1616. For the local tribunals of the Inquisition were to take their tone from the Supreme Court. [2] Footnote page 72. The abjuration was a solemn profession of faith, accompanied with a renouncement of every opinion opposed to the Church’s teaching, exacted only from those attainted of some crime implying unsoundness of faith. Hence Galileo’s anxiety to return to Florence after the proceedings of 1616 with a testamur that he had not abjured, and therefore was not guilty of any breach contrary to the Catholic faith. [3] To be condemned as a heretic Galileo would have had to admit interior dissent to the prohibition of heliocentrism as a truth consonant with Scripture. Exterior assent such as that in his book was not enough to show what was in his heart. Without a confession, which Galileo did not admit to, the Holy Office could not assume nor condemn something it cannot know with certainty. Thus Galileo was found guilty of suspicion of heresy based on his writings alone. 
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