An Introduction into the History of the Church versus Galileo
By Dr. Robert Sungenis · 2014 · ISBN 978-1-939856-47-0
What actually happened when the Catholic Church confronted Galileo, and why does it still matter? Sungenis answers from the documents, compressing the historical volume of Galileo Was Wrong to about a third of its length. His introduction names the target: writers such as Ivan R. King, Giorgio de Santillana and Dava Sobel begin from the premise that the sun-centered system was proven and the Church merely obstructed it, and the reader is left no other possibility to weigh.
The chapters then follow the record forward, from the 1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent and the 1615 case of Fr. Paolo Antonio Foscarini through Galileo's letter to Benedetto Castelli, the trial and sentence of 1633, the indexes of Alexander VII and Benedict XIV, the 1820 Settele imprimatur and the 1835 Index of Gregory XVI, the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Benedict XV, and John Paul II's 1992 speech reexamining the case. Sungenis argues throughout that the Holy Spirit was guiding the Church to reject Galileo's heliocentric system, and traces how the opposite impression came to be the popular one. Recommended for high school, college and adult readers.