Uploaded April 2011 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Watching too many Vatican videos always makes me rant. I decided to make a video rant. So this is a vrant against hypocrisy.
The story of Galileo's treatment by the church in the 17th century is well known. A lot less well known is that a story so old has only been drawing to a close in the last 20 years. Or that the current pope appears to have regretfully inherited his predecessor's admission and apology.
The Vatican planned to erect a statue in the grounds of the Vatican garden, near to the apartment where Galileo was held while waiting on his trial in 1633. This gesture was meant to signify the church's rehabilitation of Galileo. Plans were advanced to the stage that an artist had prepared a mould for the statue when the Vatican asked the sponsors to use the money elsewhere. Admitting you are wrong and making an apology is one thing, but forgiveness will be a long time coming. Galileo's remaining problem with the Vatican (as if he cares!) is that they will find it much harder to forgive him for daring to make a fool out of the pope. The Pope requested that his own view put put in Galileo's book. Seeing as he wanted to disprove that view, Galileo had no choice but to put them in the mouth of the one character who held them, while his other characters countered his arguments.
Galileo always claimed surprise at how the church reacted, but he can't have been that surprised. He called his geocentric character Simplicio, apparently after a famous greek philosopher called Simplicius. It can't possibly have been unintentional that simplicio also meant simpleton in Italian. For that, he was made to denounce all his years of work. Work that he knew was right because he had seen it with his own eyes and worked it out with his own mind.
Galileo's abjuration to the Inquisition (1633)
"Wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will neither say nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicion; and if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and Ordinary of the place in which I may be."
The story of Galileo is useful to keep in mind because it is impossible for a modern human to imagine believing that the planets and sun move around the earth. The Vatican is today treating science as dismissively as it treated Galileo. Without any authority to hold an inquisition it has changed it's tactics and now seeks to question science's very right to question reality.
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/galileo-tuscany.html
Pope Urban VIII's condemnation of Galileo (Sentencing speech at his trial 1633)
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html
Excommunicated for his scientific beliefs, Galileo and Kepler article
dermottmullan.com/kepler.htm
Report on the La Sapienza speech bu Cardinal Rattzinger in 1990
sluggerotoole.com/2008/01/22/that-leads-from-galileo-to-the-atomic-bomb
Article for proposed (and eventually scrapped) statue
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3478943.ece
Article about the Vatican shelving plans for the statue 'indefinitely'
earthtimes.org/articles/news/253318,vatican-shelves-plans-for-galileo-statue.html
Galileo Galilei
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
Galileo affair
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Heliocentrism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism
Nicolaus Copernicus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus
Paul Feyerabend
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
Benedict XVI: Science Does Not Explain the Whole Mystery
youtube.com/watch?v=pwrw92g6Ex8
Pope: Harmony exists between human research and Divine Truth
youtube.com/watch?v=L41Pp2AJCU8
Benedict XVI: Healthy Secularity in Italy
youtube.com/watch?v=vBAPQZEZp1A
Benedict XVI: New Intellectuals Needed
youtube.com/watch?v=afx1BHId70U
Puppet Vatican-POPE RATZINGER SLAPS REPORTER
youtube.com/watch?v=4qvgdS0s56Q
Watching too many Vatican videos always makes me rant. I decided to make a video rant. So this is a vrant against hypocrisy.
The story of Galileo's treatment by the church in the 17th century is well known. A lot less well known is that a story so old has only been drawing to a close in the last 20 years. Or that the current pope appears to have regretfully inherited his predecessor's admission and apology.
The Vatican planned to erect a statue in the grounds of the Vatican garden, near to the apartment where Galileo was held while waiting on his trial in 1633. This gesture was meant to signify the church's rehabilitation of Galileo. Plans were advanced to the stage that an artist had prepared a mould for the statue when the Vatican asked the sponsors to use the money elsewhere. Admitting you are wrong and making an apology is one thing, but forgiveness will be a long time coming. Galileo's remaining problem with the Vatican (as if he cares!) is that they will find it much harder to forgive him for daring to make a fool out of the pope. The Pope requested that his own view put put in Galileo's book. Seeing as he wanted to disprove that view, Galileo had no choice but to put them in the mouth of the one character who held them, while his other characters countered his arguments.
Galileo always claimed surprise at how the church reacted, but he can't have been that surprised. He called his geocentric character Simplicio, apparently after a famous greek philosopher called Simplicius. It can't possibly have been unintentional that simplicio also meant simpleton in Italian. For that, he was made to denounce all his years of work. Work that he knew was right because he had seen it with his own eyes and worked it out with his own mind.
Galileo's abjuration to the Inquisition (1633)
"Wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will neither say nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicion; and if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and Ordinary of the place in which I may be."
The story of Galileo is useful to keep in mind because it is impossible for a modern human to imagine believing that the planets and sun move around the earth. The Vatican is today treating science as dismissively as it treated Galileo. Without any authority to hold an inquisition it has changed it's tactics and now seeks to question science's very right to question reality.
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/galileo-tuscany.html
Pope Urban VIII's condemnation of Galileo (Sentencing speech at his trial 1633)
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html
Excommunicated for his scientific beliefs, Galileo and Kepler article
dermottmullan.com/kepler.htm
Report on the La Sapienza speech bu Cardinal Rattzinger in 1990
sluggerotoole.com/2008/01/22/that-leads-from-galileo-to-the-atomic-bomb
Article for proposed (and eventually scrapped) statue
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3478943.ece
Article about the Vatican shelving plans for the statue 'indefinitely'
earthtimes.org/articles/news/253318,vatican-shelves-plans-for-galileo-statue.html
Galileo Galilei
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
Galileo affair
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Heliocentrism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism
Nicolaus Copernicus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus
Paul Feyerabend
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
Benedict XVI: Science Does Not Explain the Whole Mystery
youtube.com/watch?v=pwrw92g6Ex8
Pope: Harmony exists between human research and Divine Truth
youtube.com/watch?v=L41Pp2AJCU8
Benedict XVI: Healthy Secularity in Italy
youtube.com/watch?v=vBAPQZEZp1A
Benedict XVI: New Intellectuals Needed
youtube.com/watch?v=afx1BHId70U
Puppet Vatican-POPE RATZINGER SLAPS REPORTER
youtube.com/watch?v=4qvgdS0s56Q
