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Rehab for Luther, Gallileo?
Abstract: Will the Vatican make peace with famous heretics?
On March 6, The London Times, in an article by Richard Owen reported that Pope Benedict XVI was considering the rehabilitation of Martin Luther:
According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic.
On March 10, the Catholic News Service declared that the "rumors" of Luther's rehabilitation were "groundless." Father Federico Lombardi (SJ) is reported to have told the Italian news agency ANSA that the story ""does not have any foundation, insofar as no rehabilitation of Luther is foreseen,"
On the other hand, the rehabilitation of Gallileo, who was tried for heresy in 1633, is moving forward. 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Gallileo's birth and the Vatican plans to observe the event with a statue of the scientist in the Vatican gardens near the apartment where Galileo was incarcerated while awaiting trial for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
According to reporter Richard Owen:
In January Pope Benedict XVI called off a visit to Sapienza University, Rome, after staff and students accused him of defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. They cited a speech he made at La Sapienza in 1990, while still a cardinal, in which he quoted a description of the trial of Galileo as fair. The Vatican said that the Pope had been misquoted.
The Vatican's repentance over its treatment of Galileo began in 1979, when John Paul II invited the Church to rethink the trial of Galileo.
