Sunday, 20th January 2008

Galileo and homosexuality

Jacqueline Calleja, Balzan.

Brendan Muscat of the Malta Gay Rights Movement (The Sunday Times, January 13) sees an analogy between the attitude of the Catholic Church in the Gallileo case and its teachings about homosexual behaviour. This is incorrect. The Galileo case has nothing to do with faith and morals, but homosexual behaviour has.

The former was the unfortunate case of a great scientist who put forward a theory which went against all that was believed in those days concerning the movement of the earth and the sun and which he could not prove. Indeed, when he tried to do so by referring to the moon and the tides, his arguments turned out to be fallacious. Thus, he unfortunately had the disapproval not only of the Catholic Church, but also of the Protestant churches and the scientific community of the time.

The Church has now rightly apologised for its condemnation of Galileo's theory and forcing him to live in a villa in the beautiful Tuscan hills where he continued to write and receive friends and academics till the end of his life.

On the other hand, in matters of faith and morals, the Church cannot and will not change its teachings since these, as for example those concerning homosexual behaviour, form part of the natural law "the Creator's very good work", which, according to the Catechism of the Church, "is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history".

Previous article • Thanks, Fiorentino (2)
Next article • The joys of a concrete jungle

Article © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on Sunday, November 22, 2009. This article is for personal use only, and should not be distributed.

Comments

Joseph Carmel Chetcuti (on 6/2/08)

How intriguing! So Galileo set forth a theory that "went against all that was believed in those days" and, let's not forget, the Church's manner of interpretating the Bible ... and that is not about faith and morals! How convenient! The point is that the Church was wrong then and is wrong now on homosexuality! It is a human and fallible institution. Get it?

Roberta Briffa (on 20/1/08)

One thing that you should have learned from when you were a child is that judging human beings is only God's business. Don't take on something as big as this as your lifelong crusade. People are getting tired now.