The Case of Galileo: A Closed Question? by Annibale Fantoli (review)

Is Galileo’s trial and condemnation the prime example of the conflict between science and religion? Was science, which is based on reason and experiment, bound to clash with religion, which relies on authority and dogma? How is it that honest inquirers still ask: Why did the Church tried to silence Galileo? These questions often are raised because the Galileo Affair was a dramatic incident in the history of the relations between science and religion. It also was an isolated case. Galileo was a loyal member of the Catholic Church, and it never occurred to him to attack the institution to which he belonged. He was eager to be heard within the Church, and he saw the rise of the new science as an opportunity for believers to gain a better insight into the workings of God in nature. He was worried that the Church might look foolish if it failed to understand the significance of the new astronomy and rashly condemn Copernicans. Events proved him right, and the Church took a long time to recover from the blow.

Annibale Fantoli is the distinguished author of Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church (Notre Dame, 1994), and this new book is a revised and abridged edition for the general public. It is one of the best accounts of the life and achievements of Galileo, and it is excellently translated by George V. Coyne, who played a major role in the rehabilitation of Galileo in recent years. The final part of the volume describes the unfolding of events after the condemnation of Galileo up to the present day. It is the history of a Church that continues to bear the heavy burden of the Galileo Affair because of its constant preoccupation with saving its good name, while being unwilling to accept, without shadows of compromise and veiled formulations, its responsibility in acknowledging Galileo’s greatness. His famous Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was put on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1633, and it was not until the 1835 edition that it was removed per the order of Pope Gregory XVI. Scholars were still barred from access to the documents concerning Galileo’s trial in the Secret Vatican Archives, and an effective liberalization program started only in 1880 with the new Pope Leo XIII. The most conspicuous result was the publication of all the material related to Galileo’s trial that appeared in the nineteenth volume of the national edition of the Works of Galileo that were edited by Antonio Favaro between 1890 and 1909.

The first pope to publicly and formally acknowledged the responsibility of the Church was John Paul II. Speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1979, he declared:

I hope that theologians, scholars and historians, animated by a spirit of sincere collaboration, will study the Galileo case more deeply and, in loyal recognition of wrongs from whatever side they come, will dispel the mistrust that still opposes, in many minds, a fruitful concord between science and faith, between the church and the world.

The present book is one of the most interesting and important outcomes of this historical speech. It may not close the Galileo Affair, but the book renders the matter intelligible, and it deserves to be widely read and studied.