Response to Robert Lockwood's This Rock Article on Galileo

Download PDF Here

A few remarks on Robert Lockwood’s article on the Galileo affair ("The Anti‐Catholic’s Trump Card," July‐August 2009). It was admirable to see him try to defend the Church, but it wasn't convincing. The questions he never answers are: How could the Church of the 17th century, guided by the Holy Spirit, be so deceived in the very magisterial ranks it reveres as the protector of truth? How could the Church be led to believe that the Earth’s motion or non‐motion was a matter of faith and morals if it wasn't so? Did the Holy Spirit decide to forsake the popes and cardinals of the 17th century? Lockwood provides no answers. Although he admits the Church convicted Galileo in 1633 of being "vehemently suspect of heresy," he fails to reveal why. The reason was that the same tribunal had earlier declared heliocentrism "formally heretical." Galileo was only "suspected" rather than "guilty" because the tribunal couldn't determine whether he really believed it.

Fr. Raymond Brown's Hermeneutical Heresies

Download PDF Here

In Catholic biblical hermeneutics, a turning point occurred during the reign of Pius XII. In his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, Pius believed it to be beneficial that Catholic biblical scholars be able to use the interpretive tools of what is known as “historical criticism.” In a word, it could be said that historical criticism seeks to apply scientific analysis to a written document. Is the document authentic? What is its date? Who wrote it? Did the author borrow from other sources? What type of literature is it? How much is the author influenced by his culture? Did the author fabricate, exaggerate, or embellish his story? These and many other questions the historical critic brings to his document. The document studied can be any piece of literature of historical worth – a sonnet by Shakespeare, a Greek tragedy by Homer, or even the United States Constitution. In a word, the historical critic tries to get to the real essence of the document so that he can find out the real truth of what occurred, or at least, what he thinks is the real truth.