"Sorry, Galileo," says the Pope, 400 years too late!

About 400 years ago, a scientist/astronomer by name of Galileo discovered by virtue of a telescope that the earth was not the center of the universe and the sun did not revolve around the earth. Then this upstart know-it-all scientist had the gall to publicize his findings.

You wonder what got into him. Church dogma clearly stated that the sun revolved around the earth and the earth was the center of everything because it was the center of God's creation. Galileo was no dummy. Naive maybe. But he must have known what the Church did to people who questioned its "truth."

Galileo was not burned at the stake. He got off easy. He was merely forced to recant his beliefs to avoid excommunication and an eternity in hell. Some say he recanted "tongue-in-cheek," knowing that the clergy were a bunch of ignorant dumbasses.


It took a few hundred years, but in 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized (to whom?) and said that the church's denunciation of Galileo was "a tragic error."

You betcha.

I wonder how many hundred of years it will be before some other Pope John or Paul or Pius or Leo or Benedict will apologize for other "tragic" errors? How long will it be before the Roman church says, "Oops, yeah, we were wrong about celibacy, women priests, homosexuality, gay marriage, contraception and condoms, abortion, and stem-cell research, among other things."

Too damn long!