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June 22, 1633:

Galileo Recants his
Heliocentric Theory

On this day in engineering history, the Holy Office in Rome forced Galileo Galilei to recant his scientific view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the universe.

The heliocentric theory of the solar system was first forumalted by Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer who refuted the geocentric models of Greek scholars Ptolemy and Aristotle.
Galileo Galilei first argued for the Copernican, sun-centric view of the universe in 1610 after observing the moons of Jupiter. At the time, the dominant view was still an earth-centric, Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theory. In 1612, opposition grew for a heliocentric view of the solar system.

Two years later, Galileo was denounced by a Catholic priest who described his beliefs as dangerous and close to heresy.

Galileo went to Rome to defend himself, but was warned never to teach nor advocate Copernican theory again.

In October of 1632, Galileo Galilei published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a work which compared the Copernican system to the traditional Ptolemaic system. Upon publication, Galileo was ordered to appear before the Holy Office in Rome. In 1633, he was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy.

On the morning of June 22, the Inquisition, a Church tribunal which suppressed heresy, delivered its public sentence in three essential parts:

Galileo was required to recant his sun-centric ideas:

He was ordered to be imprisoned
His offending Dialogue was banned

Galileo Galilei died from natural causes on January 8, 1642 while under house arrest. Although an unannounced part of his sentence prohibited the publication of his past or future works, he dedicated his final years to one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, a book which later earned him the title of "father of modern physics."

January 5, 2009:

Recant Holocaust denial before excommunication fully lifted

The Vatican on Wednesday demanded that a prelate who denied the Holocaust recant his positions before being fully admitted as a bishop into the Roman Catholic Church.

It also said Pope Benedict XVI had not known about Bishop Richard Williamson's views when he agreed to lift his excommunication and that of three other ultraconservative bishops Jan. 21.

The Vatican's Secretariat of State issued the statement a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the pope to make a clearer rejection of Holocaust denials, saying there had not been adequate clarification from the church.

The Holy See on Jan. 24 announced the rehabilitation of four bishops excommunicated in 1988 after being consecrated without papal consent.

Just days before, Williamson had been shown on Swedish state television saying historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed during World War II.

Williamson has since apologized to the German-born pope for having stirred controversy, but he did not repudiate his comments, in which he also said only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during World War II and none were gassed.

Though the Vatican said it did not share Williamson's views, Jewish groups voiced outrage at his rehabilitation and demanded the prelate recant.

Williamson and the three other bishops were consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who in 1969 founded the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X opposed to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, including its outreach to Jews.

The Vatican said Wednesday that, while Williamson's excommunication had been lifted, he still had no canonical function in the church because he was consecrated illegitimately.