Surprise for Galileo

Eppur si muove ("Nevertheless, it does move").

So said Galileo after the Inquisition had forced him, under threat of torture, to recant his assertion that the earth moves round the sun. The words are apocryphal, but the story lives on.

The world has indeed moved, for the Vatican is honoring the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo, whom the Holy Office condemned to imprisonment for his "scientifically false" and "antiScriptural" discoveries. Soon the Vatican will publish "an exhaustive study ... to place in its true light the aid and favor Galileo enjoyed at the hands of the Church." The Very Rev. Agostino Gemelli, president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, who made the announcement, added that "Galileo as a scientist and author of new astronomical discoveries was never persecuted by the Church, but was greatly helped."

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