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Replying to polonius.advice]
The Galileo Affair is one of the most misunderstood events in history. And is not as black and white (the Church vs. science) as most like to make it out to be. It was actually more of a political and personal nature.
As can be seen from the historical reports from Wikipedia, the notion that Galileo’s findings contradicted Scripture evolved as mere opinion of some during this time period. Also, although many within the Church had no problem with Galileo’s findings and even encouraged him in pursuing them further, none of his findings had been proven or corroborated yet. Galileo was insisting the Church to accept that which even Galileo’s own scientific community had not done yet. Also, Galileo insisted his findings contradicted Scripture. The Church asked him to stop talking about theological matters (as he had no authority to do so), but he refused. This forced some within the Church to feel the need to suppress him from speaking further until the Church could look further into what they might have felt was a discrepancy with his findings and Scripture. Even though they soon recognized there was no discrepancy to reconcile. So, like I said the Church screwed up in handling the whole thing, but Galileo screwed up too. And the whole thing caused a big mess.
Here are some words from Wikipedia giving a more accurate view of history . . .
Jesuit astronomers, experts both in Church teachings, science, and in natural philosophy, were at first skeptical and hostile to the new ideas; however, within a year or two the availability of good telescopes enabled them to repeat the observations. In 1611, Galileo visited the Collegium Romanum in Rome, where the Jesuit astronomers by that time had repeated his observations.
Galileo became involved in a dispute over priority in the discovery of sunspots with Christoph Scheiner, a Jesuit. This became a bitter lifelong feud. Neither of them, however, was the first to recognise sunspots—the Chinese had already been familiar with them for centuries.[10]
At this time, Galileo also engaged in a dispute over the reasons that objects float or sink in water, siding with Archimedes against Aristotle. The debate was unfriendly, and Galileo's blunt and sometimes sarcastic style, though not extraordinary in academic debates of the time, made him enemies. During this controversy one of Galileo's friends, the painter Lodovico Cardi da Cigoli, informed him that a group of malicious opponents, which Cigoli subsequently referred to derisively as "the Pigeon league,"[11] was plotting to cause him trouble over the motion of the earth, or anything else that would serve the purpose.[12] According to Cigoli, one of the plotters asked a priest to denounce Galileo's views from the pulpit, but the latter refused. Nevertheless, three years later another priest, Tommaso Caccini, did in fact do precisely that.
In the Catholic world prior to Galileo's conflict with the Church, the majority of educated people subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the earth was the center of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth,[13] though Copernican theories were used to reform the calendar in 1582.[14]
Geostaticism agreed with a literal interpretation of Scripture in several places, such as 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5 (but see varied interpretations of Job 26:7). Heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth was a planet, which along with all the others revolved around the Sun, contradicted both geocentrism and the prevailing theological support of the theory.[citation needed]
One of the first suggestions of heresy that Galileo had to deal with came in 1613 from a professor of philosophy, poet and specialist in Greek literature, Cosimo Boscaglia.[15][16] In conversation with Galileo's patron Cosimo II de' Medici and Cosimo's mother Christina of Lorraine, Boscaglia said that the telescopic discoveries were valid, but that the motion of the Earth was obviously contrary to Scripture.
Galileo was defended on the spot by his former student Benedetto Castelli, now a professor of mathematics and Benedictine abbot. The exchange having been reported to Galileo by Castelli, Galileo decided to write a letter to Castelli,[18] expounding his views on what he considered the most appropriate way of treating scriptural passages which made assertions about natural phenomena.[19] Later, in 1615, he expanded this into his much longer Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina.[20]
Tommaso Caccini, a Dominican friar, appears to have made the first dangerous attack on Galileo.
In late 1614 or early 1615, one of Caccini's fellow Dominicans, Niccolò Lorini, acquired a copy of Galileo's letter to Castelli. Lorini and other Dominicans at the Convent of San Marco considered the letter of doubtful orthodoxy, in part because it may have violated the decrees of the Council of Trent:
...to check unbridled spirits, [the Holy Council] decrees that no one relying on his own judgement shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which the holy mother Church... has held or holds...
— Decree of the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Quoted in Langford, 1992.[25]
The Council of Trent (1545–63) sitting in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. The Roman Inquisition suspected Galileo of violating the decrees of the Council. Museo Diocesano Tridentino, Trento.
Lorini and his colleagues decided to bring Galileo's letter to the attention of the Inquisition. In February 1615 Lorini accordingly sent a copy to the Secretary of the Inquisition, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, with a covering letter critical of Galileo's supporters:[26]
All our Fathers of the devout Convent of St. Mark feel that the letter contains many statements which seem presumptuous or suspect, as when it states that the words of Holy Scripture do not mean what they say; that in discussions about natural phenomena the authority of Scripture should rank last... [the followers of Galileo] were taking it upon themselves to expound the Holy Scripture according to their private lights and in a manner different from the common interpretation of the Fathers of the Church...
— Letter from Lorini to Cardinal Sfrondato, Inquisitor in Rome, 1615. Quoted in Langford, 1992[25]
Bellarmine found no problem with heliocentrism so long as it was treated as a purely hypothetical calculating device and not as a physically real phenomenon, but he did not regard it as permissible to advocate the latter unless it could be conclusively proved through current scientific standards. This put Galileo in a difficult position, because he believed that the available evidence strongly favoured heliocentrism, and he wished to be able to publish his arguments.[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Again, it is extremely important to recognize the Church did not set out to stand in the way of Galileo, but Galileo himself made the conclusion his findings contradicted Scripture and was telling everyone that – which was not true. So, gut reaction of the Church was to defend current scientific thought.
The Church was buying time until she could adequately explain to the faithful Church teaching. She did not want to scare anyone that Galileo had discovered something that contradicted Scripture – like he was insisting he had.
