Church reassessments of Galileo in later
centuries
The Inquisition's ban on reprinting Galileo's
works was lifted in 1718 when permission was
granted to publish an edition of his works
(excluding the condemned Dialogue ) in
Florence. [145] In 1741 Pope Benedict XIV
authorised the publication of an edition of
Galileo's complete scientific works [146] which
included a mildly censored version of the
Dialogue . [147] In 1758 the general prohibition
against works advocating heliocentrism was
removed from the Index of prohibited books,
although the specific ban on uncensored
versions of the Dialogue and Copernicus's De
Revolutionibus remained. [148] All traces of
official opposition to heliocentrism by the
church disappeared in 1835 when these works
were finally dropped from the Index. [149]
In 1939 Pope Pius XII, in his first speech to
the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, within a
few months of his election to the papacy,
described Galileo as being among the "most
audacious heroes of research... not afraid of
the stumbling blocks and the risks on the way,
nor fearful of the funereal monuments". [150]
His close advisor of 40 years, Professor
Robert Leiber, wrote: "Pius XII was very
careful not to close any doors (to science)
prematurely. He was energetic on this point
and regretted that in the case of
Galileo." [151]
On 15 February 1990, in a speech delivered at
the Sapienza University of Rome ,[152]
Cardinal Ratzinger (later to become Pope
Benedict XVI ) cited some current views on the
Galileo affair as forming what he called "a
symptomatic case that permits us to see how
deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of
science and technology goes today". [153]
Some of the views he cited were those of the
philosopher Paul Feyerabend, whom he
quoted as saying "The Church at the time of
Galileo kept much more closely to reason
than did Galileo himself, and she took into
consideration the ethical and social
consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her
verdict against Galileo was rational and just
and the revision of this verdict can be justified
only on the grounds of what is politically
opportune." [153] The Cardinal did not clearly
indicate whether he agreed or disagreed with
Feyerabend's assertions. He did, however,
say "It would be foolish to construct an
impulsive apologetic on the basis of such
views." [153]
On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II
expressed regret for how the Galileo affair
was handled, and issued a declaration
acknowledging the errors committed by the
Catholic Church tribunal that judged the
scientific positions of Galileo Galilei, as the
result of a study conducted by the Pontifical
Council for Culture. [154][155] In March 2008
the head of the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences, Nicola Cabibbo, announced a plan
to honour Galileo by erecting a statue of him
inside the Vatican walls. [156] In December of
the same year, during events to mark the
400th anniversary of Galileo's earliest
telescopic observations, Pope Benedict XVI
praised his contributions to astronomy. [157] A
month later, however, the head of the
Pontifical Council for Culture, Gianfranco
Ravasi, revealed that the plan to erect a
statue of Galileo in the grounds of the Vatican
had been suspended. [158]
Impact on modern science
According to Stephen Hawking , Galileo
probably bears more of the responsibility for
the birth of modern science than anybody
else, [159] and Albert Einstein called him the
father of modern science. [160][161]
Galileo's astronomical discoveries and
investigations into the Copernican theory have
led to a lasting legacy which includes the
categorisation of the four large moons of
Jupiter discovered by Galileo ( Io, Europa,
Ganymede and Callisto ) as the Galilean
moons . Other scientific endeavours and
principles are named after Galileo including
the Galileo spacecraft,[162] the first
spacecraft to enter orbit around Jupiter, the
proposed Galileo global satellite navigation
system, the transformation between inertial
systems in classical mechanics denoted
Galilean transformation and the Gal (unit) ,
sometimes known as the Galileo, which is a
non- SI unit of acceleration .