artin, who much against
his will is forced to allow this. See also Roberts, Pontifical decrees
against the Earth's Movement, and St. George Mivart's article, as above
quoted; also Reusch, Index der verbotenen Bucher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii,
pp. 29 et seq.

When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decision against
Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by the Church as such, an
eminent theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector of the College of
Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared that it "was not certain
cardinals, but the supreme authority of the Church," that had condemned
Galileo; and to this statement the Pope and other Church authorities
gave consent either openly or by silence. When Descartes and others
attempted to raise the same point, they were treated with contempt.
Father Castelli, who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his
cost just what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for
granted, in his letter to the papal authorities, that it was made by the
Church. Cardinal Querenghi, in his letters; the ambassador Guicciardini,
in his dispatches; Polacco, in his refutation; the historian Viviani,
in his biography of Galileo--all writing under Church inspection
and approval at the time, took the view that the Pope and the Church
condemned Galileo, and this was never denied at Rome. The Inquisition
itself, backed by the greatest theologian of the time (Bellarmin), took
the same view. Not only does he declare that he makes the condemnation
"in the name of His Holiness the Pope," but we have the Roman Index,
containing the condemnation for nearly two hundred years, prefaced by
a solemn bull of the reigning Pope binding this condemnation on the
consciences of the whole Church, and declaring year after year that "all
books which affirm the motion of the earth" are damnable. To attempt
to face all this, added to the fact that Galileo was required to abjure
"the heresy of the movement of the earth" by written order of the Pope,
was soon seen to be impossible. Against the assertion that the Pope
was not responsible we have all this mass of testimony, and the bull of
Alexander VII in 1664.(83)

(83) For Lecazre's answer to Gassendi, see Martin, pp. 146, 147. For the
attempt to make the crimes of Galileo breach of etiquette, see Dublin
Review, as above. Whewell, vol. i, p. 283. Citation from Marini:
"Galileo was punished for trifling with the authorities, to which
he re