Details are essential

I invited Lou Bondì (November 16) to correct a blunder which was made during one of his programmes on television. Bondiplus asserted that Galileo Galilei was persecuted by the Catholic Church for advocating that the earth is round and not flat.

I corrected that misconception by referring to the fact that Galileo Galilei propagated Copernicus's hypothesis that the world revolves around the sun and not vice versa.

I furthermore stated that the Catholic Church felt uncomfortable with that theory. That was to put it mildly. It is very true that I did not portray the Catholic Church's ferocious reaction to Galileo. That, however, was not to water down the Catholic Church's totalitarianism of that time or to put Galileo's life-long persecution by the Church in doubt as Alex Tonna of Mosta feared (November 22).

The motivation behind my letter was merely to give the gist of the matter as it was felt that certain details were not essential in that context.

Should any readers wish to dwell on the subject of the Papacy of Urbanus VIII (1623-1644) and the epoch of the Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1600's) and Galileo Galilei they are cordially invited to dialogue with me on cjbutch@maltanet.net.