Some Catholics Still Say Galileo Was Wrong

Conservatives tie astronomer's ideas to moral decline
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 29, 2011 12:37 AM CDT
Updated Aug 29, 2011 5:41 AM CDT
Conservative Catholic Movement Insists Galileo Was Wrong
Galileo Galilei, the Italian physicist and astronomer who was sentenced to house arrest by the Roman Catholic church for saying the Earth revolves around the sun.   (Shutterstock)

Not only did Roman Catholics arrest Galileo for saying the Earth revolves around the sun—a handful of them still insist he was wrong. It's a small movement, but a few conservative Roman Catholics are turning to Church teachings and a dozen Bible verses as proof of a geocentric universe, the Chicago Tribune reports. Heliocentrism, which puts the sun at the center of the solar system, "becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of the movement.

His logic continues: "False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions—thus the state of the world today..." Arguing for a society in which government and academia are subservient to the Church, believers held a conference near the University of Notre Dame last fall. Astrophysicists at the university were not amused. "There are some people who want to move the world back to the 1950s when it seemed like a better time," said one. "These are people who want to move the world back to the 1250s." (More Galileo stories.)

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