I
C O P Y Response to the 31 Oct 00 priest’s letter
on the subject of a Catholic stance on geocentricity
9 Dec 00
Dear Fr. XXXXXXXXX
For some years now I have taken a keen interest in the Geocentrism-Heliocentrism debate, mainly from the literature distributed by Mr. Paul Ellwanger, and then some private sources. Among these papers are the writings of Miss Paula Haigh.
Any worthwhile debate however, must consider all views and opinions on the matter.
Of great interest to me was your opinion on Miss Haigh’s "Was It/Is It Infallible?" She came to the conclusion that it was, having considered data available on the point. You, like the vast majority of those who have ever considered the matter, say no, it wasn’t, that "it is going too far to claim the Church teaching on geocentrism has ever reached infallible status."
Before I address your arguments against infallibility, a little preamble. I must say that, having studied the matter for some time, I am now able to ask some very awkward questions.
(1) What does was it infallible actually mean?
(2) Why should the infallible status of the 1616 anti-Copernican decree be questioned?
(3) Who has the authority to pronounce on such a question?
Similarly, having read dozens and dozens of such opinions, written over the last 150 years, I can propose some answers to these questions.
Given that the vast majority of Catholics since 1741 accepted that the earth moves and the sun does not, there emerged a need to explain exactly how the Catholic Church could continue to claim infallibility and immutability in the wake of Her condemnation of Copernicanism in 1616. After exhausting every casuistry in the book, the last hope was that if it could be shown that the decree was not infallible, then the flock and the Church’s critics might be convinced that the infamous U-turn merely legally put right what was all a terrible but harmless mistake.
To the few that knew better it meant/means something even more serious. I include here the position of a "sede vacantist" who went to great lengths to establish the decree’s non-infallibility.[1] Because Pope Benedict XIV and Pope Pius VII fully accepted Copernicanism[2] as proven by science and consequently allowed Catholics to believe it as orthodox, it was crucial that the anti-Copernican decree be totally discredited and undermined as a Church teaching.
The problem was that before any pope could even think of accepting Copernicanism as reconcilable to Scripture he would have had to become a convinced Copernican first, yes? In other words, the Pope would have to fall into heresy before he could do anything about it.
This arose from the catch-22 nature of the prohibition as spelled out to all during the Galileo case. And Pope Benedict XIV did just that, and later Pope Pius VII and the whole Holy Office. Thus we could have heretic popes running the Church from 1741.
Now we can’t have that, can we? Especially not those sede vacantists. As you probably know, they say once a pope becomes an heretic, then all bets are off, all authority gone. This of course would make Vatican II look like a holiday compared to a 260-year-old apostasy.
So, it seems the whole Catholic world, with a few exceptions, had/has a vested interest in trying to make provision for popes to contradict popes and even overturn decrees on a matter of faith promulgated by those instruments set up by the Church.
Now it must be perfectly obvious to any Catholic mind that such a formula does not exist within the Catholic Church. Nevertheless they actually went through the motions as though it did. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was allowed to rubbish the authority of the anti-Copernican decree. The result was to allow the world to think that if it could be shown the decree was not promulgated as an ex cathedra infallible decree, then it, even though recorded history, could be totally ignored. This then is what they mean when they assert "It was not infallible."
The next problem is how to answer the really, really awkward question: "How does the rejection of the 1616 decree’s infallibility actually save the Church’s credibility?" Has the Church a 2-tier teaching Magisterium, an infallible one and a fallible one; one that has real authority and the other that can define and declare heresy willy-nilly, here today, gone tomorrow, no-harm-done?
For example, let us take a few other things promulgated by that same authority that condemned Copernicanism back then. If we consult Denzinger we find in effect, still Catholic teaching, the following:
Absolution of One in Absentia’ (From the Decree of the Holy Office, June 20, 1602)…
His Holiness…condemns and forbids as false, rash and scandalous the proposition, namely, “that it is lawful through letter or thought [try phone or e-mail today] a messenger to confess sins sacramentally to an absent confessor…
Another: ‘The Aids or Efficacy of Grace’ (Decree of the Holy Office, Dec., 1611)
Another: ‘Error of the Dual Head of the Church (or the primacy of the R.P.) (From
The decree of the Sacred Office, Jan 24, 1627)
Another: ‘Various Errors on Moral Matters (Condemned in the decrees of Sept 24, 1665, and of March 18, 1666)
I could go on. Are we to take it that because these things could be deemed ‘fallible’, i.e., not infallible, a pope can come along some day and simply erase them off the face of the Church as though they never existed, as they did the anti-Copernican decree? What then did the Fathers of the Vatican mean when they said:
The Roman Pontiffs, moreover, according as the condition of the times and affairs advised, sometimes by calling ecumenical Councils or by examining the opinions of the Church spread throughout the world; sometimes by particular synods, sometimes by employing other helps which divine Providence supplied, have defined that those matters must be held which with God’s help they have recognised as in agreement with Sacred scripture and apostolic tradition. (1836) (Emphasis added)
Given that these same Fathers seemed to have no problem in going along with the Copernican popes in dismissing a decree that had every single principle mentioned above, who cannot see that, like the Modernists, while the decree is Catholic and infallible truth, the practice was/is otherwise.
So now we know why the Copernican Churchmen had to remove every vestige of the anti-Copernican decrees from the official record of Church teaching.
By removing the evidence they conspired to prevent any serious debate. Having murdered Church teaching, they had to hide the body. This then is why they allowed every Tom, Dick and Harry to lie and cheat, to obscure and confuse, to bully and abuse, just so long as nobody would ever find, recognise and reveal the actual facts of the case. If this were to happen then we might recognise how the Church was led into the great apostasy that was forecast in Sacred Scripture.
But by far the most interesting question is the third: Who has the authority to decide on the decree’s infallibility? It certainly is not the army of apologists that have put themselves forward, whether they are heliocentricists or geocentricists. Who then? Why the Church of course, no one else.
The next question is WHO IS THE CHURCH? Pope Paul V? Pope Urban VIII? Pope Alexander VII? Pope Benedict XIV? Pope Pius VII? J.B. Franzelin? the 1981-92 Commission? WHO?
The answer should be all of them, but then, they would all have had to agree.
Given the last five contradicted the first two, we can ask the question again. WHO? The first two who were there and enforced the decree in 1616 and who have been vindicated by the empirical evidence, or, those who were not; who were full of false heliocentric propaganda, and who acted as though the first two "hadn’t the expertise of first-year-seminarians," as Fr Roberts put it?
It is clear from the records of the Church that the Pope (Pope Urban VIII) did rule on the infallibility of the 1616 decrees, in 1633, and his decision was made known to the baptised world. That enquiry found that it was defined and declared to be heresy and that this decision was irreversible. The same Pope made it known that the Church considered the heresy to be against the Catholic faith. Now in any Catholic’s book this comes as close to any understanding of infallibility within the Church short of a direct and unmistakable ex cathedra declaration.
Invoking, then, the most holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that of His most glorious Mother Mary ever Virgin, by this our definitive sentence we say, pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo, on account of the these things proved against you by documentary evidence, and which have been confessed by you as aforesaid, have rendered yourself to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having believed and held a doctrine which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures----to wit, that the sun is in the centre of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth moves, and is not the centre of the universe; and that an opinion can be held and defended as probable after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to Holy Scripture… (Emphases added)
Galileo himself was made to abjure, reading a prepared text[3] that also tells us so much about the 1616 decree:
… I abjure, curse, and detest, the above named errors, and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to the above-mentioned Holy Church…
As I see it, if the 1616 decree, backed up by the 1633 interpretation of it, plus the 1664 promulgation of it, was not true, then the Church is a fraud.
The reason I say this is because the Church teaches us that the Church cannot teach error. I dare say this of course, knowing that science never got within an ass’s roar of demonstrating that the earth moves. In other words, for something to be infallible it would have to be true, and the decree was true, is true, and always will be true.
But if we lost the Catholic way and believed the Freemason Newton and his pals, running the Rosicrucian Royal Society, we would lose our faith in the Holy Ghost’s guidance, and would have to believe the decree was fallible. Are these then the proper grounds upon which to assess the authority of the 1616 decree?
Moreover, if we believe the line put out by the Copernican churchmen -- that is, that the decrees were not infallible, and so when the U-turn was made, no problem -- would we be free of the consequences of this reversal?
Well here is one consequence to consider. We can read that the case for the infallibility of the 1616 decree was so convincing, and the U-turn so blatantly illegal, that one priest at least [Fr. Roberts], was led to believe the dogma on infallibility, when promulgated in 1870, was no more than a pious belief, proven so by the facts of the Galileo case.
Now it is all very well to say this placed Fr Roberts in heresy after 1870, but what and who led him into heresy? He was but defending the word of the Church of 1616, 1633 and 1664 as irreversible? Indeed how many others (like Mivart) were morally convinced in conscience that Rome of 1616 declared and defined that Copernicanism was against Catholic faith and that it was an irreversible definition by Rome?
Are many today not tortured by having to reject the same ‘who and what’ that overturned, ignored, obscured and abandoned all those doctrines at Vatican II and so much more after it? Will they be condemned and branded heretics and schismatics like Fr Roberts?
I could go on, but I hope I have shown that the can of worms that lies buried under the geocentric doctrine abandoned by Rome since 1741 will have to be opened fully before the Church will be restored in all things under Christ.
Now as I read her, Miss Paula Haigh was supporting Pope Urban VIII’s declaration and I would therefore defend her position as a Catholic when doing so on doctrinal and empirical grounds. That she felt the need to demonstrate this fact further by use of other arguments was, I believe, perfectly understandable.
And so it is that I question your motive for arguing that the 1616 decree was fallible. Is it because you certainly do not feel obliged to accept their ruling that the earth is the immovable centre of the universe and that the sun orbits the earth? A geocentricist ‘á la Crombette’ that you say you are, is no geocentricist at all according to the Church’s ruling of 1616, is it? Don’t you believe the earth moves, even if it is a mere trifle? To claim such a version of geocentricism has tradition, the Magisterium and other evidence to support it is simply not true. It is but the idea and dream of a rather eccentric man and others that do not accept the Church’s authority to decide how the Scriptures are to be understood. Indeed he strikes me as Protestant, i.e., one determined to do the job better.
And so to your points of objection to Paula Haigh’s essay, the contribution to the ‘open debate’ you refer to, that does not, cannot, will never be allowed out in the open if the Copernican Catholics have their way (for the reasons outlined above).
Point A: The opinion of the Fathers
Your argument is that they accepted the Bible spoke of a moving sun and an immobile earth not as a matter of faith, but as a matter of common sense and observation. Let me place my answer, most of it gleaned from the writings of Paula Haigh, in the mouth of one of the 1616 qualifiers:
Fr Angelus:
Now there will be those who say they were unanimous in their acceptance not because they held the sun’s movement and the immobility of the earth to be of faith, but because of the confirmation of the senses. I answer that there were Fathers who professed publicly that they considered these things to be of faith. The others may well have considered it to be of faith also but simply never had occasioned to announce or profess it. Certainly no Father ever said the contrary was their position, and thus the onus is on the sceptic to show otherwise. Better though that they abandon their assertion that they can read the minds of the Fathers.