Cardinal Bellarmine, a man of great energy, earnest, zealous, sincere, learned--the Doctor Buckley of his day--showed how that: "if the Copernican Theory should prevail, it would be the absolute undoing of the Bible, and the destruction of the Church, rendering the death of Christ futile. If the earth is only one of many planets, and not the center of the universe, and the other planets are inhabited, the whole plan of salvation fails, since the inhabitants of the other spheres are without the Bible, and Christ did not die for them." This was the argument of Father Lecazre, and many others who took their cue from him.
Galileo was denounced as "atheist" and "infidel"--epithets that do not frighten us much now, since they have been applied to most of the really great and good men who have ever lived. But then such words set fire to masses of inflammable prejudices, and there were conflagrations of wrath and hate against which it was vain to argue.
The Archbishop of Pisa especially felt it incumbent upon him "to bring Galileo to justice."
Galileo was born at Pisa, educated there, taught in the University; and now he had disgraced the place and brought it into disrepute.
Galileo was still in communication with teachers at Pisa, and the Archbishop made it his business to have letters written to Galileo asking certain specific questions. One man, Castelli, declined to be used for the purpose of entrapping Galileo, but others there were who loaned themselves to the plan.
In Sixteen Hundred Sixteen, Galileo received a formal summons from Pope Paul the Fifth to come to Rome and purge himself of heresies that he had expressed in letters which were then in the hands of the Inquisition.
Galileo appealed to his friends at Florence, but they were powerless. When the Pope issued an order, it could not be waived. The greatest thinker of his time journeyed to Rome and faced the greatest theologian of his day, Cardinal Bellarmine.
The Cardinal firmly and clearly showed Galileo the error of his way. Galileo offered to prove for the Cardinal by astronomical observations that the Copernican Theory was true. Cardinal Bellarmine said that there was only one truth and that was spiritual truth. That the Bible was true, or it was not. If not, then was religion a fallacy and our hope of Heaven a delusion.