If the Church's last authoritative statement affirmed geocentrism, why did Pope John Paul II give a speech affirming a non-geocentric universe?
A viewer asks: I read your paper that the last authoritative statement by the church on geocentrism came during Galileo's time. So why did Pope John Paul II give that speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences affirming a non-geocentric universe? Was he not aware of the church's stance?
Answer
Their whole purpose in organizing the Galileo commission in 1981 was to study what really went on with the popes and Galileo in the 1600s. But the pope staffed it with the liberals of the church. Do you think any conservatives were picked? The head man, Cardinal Poupard of France, is the one who wrote the pope's 1992 speech. Their conclusion was that the popes of the 1600s made their mistake because they believed the Bible had to be interpreted literally, so when they came to a passage that says the earth does not move and the sun revolves around it, they took it literally. Well, where would they have gotten the idea to take the Bible literally? Maybe from Jesus saying, this is my body, take and eat, which is why we have the Eucharist. In John 6 the word is not eat, it is trogo, to munch or chew, used four times. Or from baptism: unless a man is baptized of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom. The whole church had a legacy of taking Scripture literally for sixteen hundred years. So who has the problem here? Poupard and his entourage do, because they think science proves the earth moves. You have Galileo and Newton, and all they think they need is one equation. That is also why the new Jerome commentary says Scripture is no longer inspired, because otherwise they would have to read Psalm 93, which says the earth does not move, and mean it, and Newton told them otherwise, Newton being a man who belonged to no church and made things up without proof.