In a long document, most
elaborately drawn up, it is definitely charged against Galileo that,
in publishing the Dialogue, he committed the essentially grave error
of treating the doctrine of the earth's motion as open to
discussion. Galileo knew, so the document affirmed, that the Church
had emphatically pronounced this notion to be contrary to Holy Writ,
and that for him to consider a doctrine so stigmatized as having any
shadow of probability in its favour was an act of disrespect to the
authority of the Church which could not be overlooked. It was also
charged against Galileo that in his Dialogue he has put the strongest
arguments into the mouth, not of those who supported the orthodox
doctrine, but of those who held the theory as to the earth's motion
which the Church had so deliberately condemned.
After due consideration of the defence made by the prisoner, it was
thereupon decreed that he had rendered himself vehemently suspected
of heresy by the Holy Office, and in consequence had incurred all the
censures and penalties of the sacred canons, and other decrees
promulgated against such persons. The graver portion of these
punishments would be remitted, if Galileo would solemnly repudiate
the heresies referred to by an abjuration to be pronounced by him in
the terms laid down.
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