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| Capture of Joan of Arc (1847-52) by Adolphe Alexandre Dillens |
Congruence is a necessary feature of the discernment of the spirits. What exactly do we mean by “congruence”?
Earlier, I had written, “The principle of congruence [is] the principle of consistency, logical and moral, between claims based on the spirits—conveyed, for example, through visions, locutions, and the like—and the beliefs and actions indicated thereby, and external circumstances. External circumstances include the favorable judgment of legitimate and appropriate religious or spiritual authority, and the support of reason and demonstration. Inconsistency points towards repudiation.”
This description, which expounds in the abstract, calls for a little explanation.
Although Saint Ignatius of Loyola does not use the term “congruence” in his 22 Rules for the Discernment of the Spirits, he explicitly refers to the concept in Spiritual Exercises, 183 and 186, in the section where he expounds the three ways of making “a good and sound election,” that is, major decisions with ramifications for the spiritual life.
Concerning the first way, Saint Ignatius says, “Such election, or deliberation, made, the person who has made it ought to go with much diligence to prayer before God our Lord and offer Him such election, that His Divine Majesty may be pleased to receive and confirm it, if it is to His greater service and praise.” [183]
He takes up the “second way,” saying, “I will make my election and offering to God our Lord, conformably to the sixth Point of the First Way of making election.” [186]
The principle of congruence entails that the person who pursues the process of discernment to its conclusion, sufficiently decisive even if not final, afterwards brings their judgment and decision before God in prayer. In doing so, they seek interior confirmation from God. Moreover, their action presupposes logical and moral consistency.
Father Karl Rahner, S.J. not only expands on the concept of congruence but also uses the term explicitly.
“…Rahner argues, ordinary people often make important decisions more or less in the way suggested by Ignatius. A person might ponder something to be decided over some time, and then make a decision on the basis of what feels right and in harmony with [their sense of self]. Theologically, Rahner points out, this [sense of self] may include [their deepest sense of self] before God. This deepest sense of self is the place of grace, the place of the Holy Spirit.
“Such a decision is made not only on the basis of rational analysis, but also by a sense of what ‘suits’ a person deep down. Many people express the need to ‘sleep’ on a decision. It seems that they need time to find out what is congruent [boldface mine] with their true sense of self in a particular context. In the light of this, Rahner suggests that faithful Christians ‘who have never heard of St. Ignatius’s instructions nevertheless instinctively make their decisions by their everyday religious logic in essentially the same way as Ignatius provides for’ [Karl Rahner, “The Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola,” in The Dynamic Element in the Church (London: Burns and Oates, 1964), pages 166-7]
“It must be admitted that we always face the danger of delusion: If I decide something on the basis that I feel ‘at home’ with it, this can easily be a self-centered judgment. It simply indicates that the proposal does not take me out of my comfort zone. The more refined process suggested by Ignatius creates the possibility of finding freedom to make the hard choice. It seeks to ensure that I am testing a decision not against a superficial sense of myself, but against a real openness to the otherness of God.”
—Denis Edwards, “Discernment of the Holy Spirit,” Australian Ecumenical Council for Spiritual Direction
Rahner observes that Saint Ignatius does not originate the concept of congruence—the principle of congruence, according to Rahner, pre-exists any explicit theological understanding and is in fact instinctively present in the spirit of faithful Christians.
Adhering to the principle of congruence is always accompanied by consolation.
The following account explains how consistency in the practice of the Christian faith goes hand in hand with consolation, that is, with feelings of harmony and peace (“pleases one’s Christian self”). The account emphasizes “emotivism” as a necessary tipping point in discernment.
“There is a set of emotions related to faith and integrated with it, and these Christian emotions are aroused by prayer, worship, spiritual reading, and so on. …The other set of emotions includes those bearing on the possibilities between which one must discern…. These emotions are aroused by carefully and concretely considering as fully as possible what actually would be involved in the options under consideration. (It is assumed that the necessary investigating and information gathering already have been done.) Then one’s Christian-faith emotions are compared with the sets of emotions related to each option—emotions which reflect not only the realities on which they bear but the reality of one’s hidden self. What is involved here is not some sort of objective measurement, but the effort to perceive an inward harmony. If the emotions related to one option plainly harmonize better with one’s Christian-faith emotions, that can be considered the option which pleases one’s Christian self, and one should choose as pleases this self.”
http://twotlj.org/G-2-5-J.html
—Mount Saint Mary’s University, “Living a Christian Life: Chapter 5: Seeking Moral Truth: Moral Judgment and Problem Solving: Question J: How Should One Discern between or among Good Options?” The Way of the Lord Jesus
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2022/07/discernment-and-conscience.html
Confirmatory emotions naturally follow when discernment of the spirits exhibits congruence.
Father James Martin, S.J. lists eight ways in which our spiritual desires reveal the action and direction of God. They include “exaltation” and “clarity,” which are confirmatory emotions.
Father Martin explains “exaltation”—“Here you feel lifted up, or likewise, a sense of exaltation or happiness.”
Concerning “clarity,” he says, “Sometimes you feel tantalizingly close to understanding exactly what the world is about. Yes, you think to yourself, now I get it.”
See: https://uscatholic.org/articles/201006/more-than-a-feeling-a-desire-for-god/
—James Martin, S.J., “More than a Feeling: A Desire for God,” U.S. Catholic: Faith in Real Life (June 30, 2010)
Confirmatory emotions are a type of consolation. They affirm the soundness of a judgment or a decision.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/07/placeholder-2-of-2.html
If congruence goes hand in hand with consolation, then the converse is also true, that is, incongruence is inexorably accompanied by desolation and is in fact a type of desolation. Incongruence does not only incite negative and harmful emotions, which define desolation. When the faithful Christian suffers inconsistency, the incongruence itself constitutes desolation.
I would like to look in some detail at two examples.
Saint Joan of Arc
Near the close of Joan of Arc’s trial, which was conducted at Rouen from January 9, 1431 until the end of May, Joan was subjected to grave duress—she was threatened with execution as a heretic by burning at the stake—and then tricked into signing an abjuration, the contents of which she was unable to read or understand.
A reliable account of events is given by Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin in Joan of Arc: Her Story (2000).
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Guillaume Érard addressed Joan directly:
“Look at my lords the judges, who many times have summoned you to submit all your words and deeds to our holy mother the church, explain to you and remonstrating that it in your words and deeds there were many things that , as it seemed to the clergy, were not good to say and to support.”
[Joan’s reply] [square brackets mine] “I shall answer you. Regarding the matter of submission to the church, I have answered you on that point: of all the works I have done, let a report be sent to Rome and to our holy father, the sovereign pontiff, to whom, and to God first of all, I appeal. As to my words and deeds, I have done them on God’s orders and charge no one else with them, neither my king nor any other. If there is any fault, it is mine and no one else’s.” [Here Joan maintains belief in the authenticity of her mystical experiences and in her obedience to them in submission to her understanding of God’s will.] [square brackets mine]
…There are many instances of inquisitorial trials in which the appeal to the pope was enough to interrupt the process, but that did not happen here.
Three times Guillaume Érard repeated his exhortation, while Jean Massieu handed Joan a cedula, a slip of parchment designed to be attached to a legal document. Someone had written a letter of abjuration on this slip. Massieu urged her to sign it. At that moment, as Massieu reported a quarter-century later…”I warned Joan of the peril that was threatening her, and I instructed her about signing the cedula and I saw clearly that she did not understand the document.”
To Joan’s appeal to the pope, no other response was given than “It is impossible to go find our lord the pope at such a distance.” Her request to have the cedula explained to her met with the same reaction. According to the testimony of Massieu, Joan demanded that the document be inspected by the clerks and that they should give her counsel; Guillaume Érard answered: “Do it now,”—presumably he meant for her to sign it—”otherwise you will end your days by fire.”
…She first drew a circle; Laurence Calot [secretary of the King of England] [square brackets mine] held her hand and made her draw a cross on the document.
What was on that slip of parchment? The cedula was said to contain a promise that Joan would no longer wear men’s clothes. [boldface mine] According to the testimony of Guillaume Manchon, who in his capacity as notary should have been aware of the meaning of this scene, Joan laughed. We may ask if the cross that she had just drawn in place of a signature (we have seen that she signed her name on several letters, from the end of 1429) might not have been a reference to the cross that she had sometimes put on military messages, as a previously agreed signal indicating that whoever received the letter should consider it null and void.
…[The letter of abjuration] [square brackets mine], according to the later report of eyewitnesses, was six or eight lines long, whereas in the trial transcript the cedula of abjuration consists of forty-seven printed lines in the French translation (forty-four in the Latin text). As Jean Massieu declared in the nullification trial:
“It was given to me to read to her, and I read it to Joan, and I remember well that in that letter it was noted that in future she would neither carry arms, nor wear men’s clothes, nor would she cut her hair short, and many other things that I do not remember anymore; and I know well that cedula contained about eight lines and no more, and I know absolutely that it was not registered in the transcript of the trial, because what I read her was different from that which was inserted in the record, and that [the one he read her] is the one Joan signed.”
[By affixing her mark on the cedula or letter of abjuration, Joan is judged a “reformed heretic” by the court of the Inquisition—even if the record does not indicate the abjuration of her mystical claims.] [boldface mine] [square brackets mine]
..Specific punishments meted out to reformed heretics seem to have varied, but the normal period of imprisonment was three years; if punished as a reformed heretic, Joan might well have expected to be freed eventually and to return to Domrémy.
…Only those who had relapsed—that is, those who having once abjured their errors returned to them—could be condemned to death by a tribunal of the Inquisition and delivered for death “to the secular arm.” …The cedula containing a promise to no longer wear men’s clothes became the instrument of a game to make Joan relapse. [boldface mine]
What were the exact circumstances that constrained Joan to relapse? By the following Sunday, three days later, Joan once more wore male attire: [boldface mine] She reclaimed male garments when she was returned to the secular prison and exposed to further abuse by her English guards. Martin Ladvenu affirms that “someone approached her secretly at night; I have heard from Joan’s own mouth than an English lord entered her cell and tried to take her by force.” Jean Massieu gives a slightly different version: Having returned to women’s clothes on the Thursday after Pentecost, at the moment when she woke up in the morning of the following Sunday, Trinity Sunday, she could not find her women’s clothes because the English guards had taken these away from her after throwing her a sack in which were exclusively men’s clothes; and so “she dressed herself in the men’s clothes which they had thrown her.”
…[Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais] [square brackets mine] interrogated her, to learn when and for what reason she had once more assumed men’s clothes. “I did it on my own will,” Joan declared; “I took it again because it was more lawful and convenient than to have women’s clothes because I am with men; I began to wear them again because what was promised me was not observed, to wit that I should go to mass and receive the body of Christ and be freed from these irons. …if I could be put in a decent prison and if I could have a woman to help me…I would be good and do what the church wishes.”
…”Since Thursday, have you heard the voices of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret?” [Cauchon asked.]
“Yes.”
“What have they told you?”
“God expressed through Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret His great sorrow at the strong treason in which I consented in abjuring and making a revocation to save my life, and said that I was damning myself to save my life.” [boldface mine]
…After saying explicitly that her voices had told her what was to happen at Saint-Ouen that Thursday, she added: “I did not say or intend to deny my apparitions, that is, that they were Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.” [boldface mine]
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—pages 130-133
Joan’s words repudiating her abjuration—whatever might be the original content of it—indicates that the abjuration did not conform to her conscience when she endorsed it. Her abjuration was inconsistent with her conviction about her apparitions. Her abjuration, according to our understanding of the discernment of the spirits, was incongruent. It was a type of desolation.
Joan recovers her sense of moral integrity when under the threat of almost certain death she affirms her belief in her apparitions and insists that she never denied them. Her conduct and demeanor afterwards demonstrate that despite her desperate situation, she remained in consolation to the end. She discerned correctly according to the principle of congruence.
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei illustrates the principle that incongruence is desolation because he never interiorly repudiates his belief in heliocentrism. Although beginning from the conclusion of his trial for heresy in 1633 until the end of his life—a period of nine years—he outwardly professes geocentrism, he never advocates in favor of it. He never publicly argues against his earlier position or loudly disclaims it. Instead he quietly accedes to the judgment of the court of the Inquisition, because he is well aware of the threat of immediate execution for the charge of heresy, which, moreover, would possibly be preceded by the application of torture. Evidence shows that he discreetly maintained his personal conviction of the scientific truth of heliocentrism. He understood that only by submitting to the powers that be that he—now an ailing man of 69 years—could manage his affairs in peaceful retreat and good conscience.
According to Professor Douglas O. Linder, some historians, “…including Giorgio de Santillana, have seen it as the only rational move open to him: ‘He was not a religious visionary being asked to renounce his vision. He was an intelligent man who had taken heavy risks to force an issue and to change a policy for the good of his faith. He had been snubbed; he had nothing to do but pay the price and go home. The scientific truth would take care of itself.’”
https://famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1014-home
—Douglas O. Linder, “The Trial of Galileo: An Account,” Famous Trials
Examination of the documentary record shows that Galileo was robustly convinced of the truth of heliocentrism. For many decades he pursued his intellectual conviction with great energy, determination, and conviction.
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Sometime in the mid-1590s, Galileo concluded that Copernicus got it right. He admitted as much in a 1597 letter to Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician who had written about planetary systems: “Like you, I accepted the Copernican position several years ago and discovered from thence the cause of many natural effects which are doubtless inexplicable by the current theories.” Galileo, however, continued to keep his thoughts to a few trusted friends, as he explained to Kepler: “I have not dared until now to bring my reasons and refutations into the open, being warned by the fortunes of Copernicus himself, our master, who procured for himself immortal fame among a few but stepped down among the great crowd.”
Galileo’s discovery of the telescope in 1609 enabled him to confirm his beliefs in the Copernican system and emboldened him to make public arguments in its favor. Through a telescope set in his garden behind his house, Galileo saw the Milky Way, the valleys and mountains of the moon, and—especially relevant to his thinking about the Copernican system—four moons orbiting around Jupiter like a miniature planetary system. Galileo, a good Catholic, offered “infinite thanks to God for being so kind as to make me alone the first observer of marvels kept hidden in obscurity for all previous centuries.” Galileo began talking about his observations at dinner parties and in public debates in Florence, where he has taken up a new post.
Galileo expected the telescope to quickly make believers in the Copernican system out of all educated persons, but he was disappointed. He expressed his discouragement in a 1610 letter to Kepler: “My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?” It became clear that the Copernican theory had its enemies.
Galileo’s first instinct was turn to acquiring more knowledge for those few open minds he was able to reach—disciples such as monk Benedetto Castelli. Galileo wrote to Castelli: “In order to convince those obdurate men, who are out for the vain approval of the stupid vulgar, it would not me enough even if the stars came down on earth to bring witness about themselves. Let us be concerned only with gaining knowledge for ourselves, and let us find therein our consolation.”
Soon, however, Galileo—flamboyant by nature—decided that Copernicus was worth a fight. He decided to address his arguments to the enlightened public at large, rather than the hidebound academics. He saw more hope for gaining support among businessmen, gentlemen, princes, and Jesuit astronomers than among the vested apologists of universities. He seemed compelled to act as a consultant in natural philosophy to all who would listen. He wrote in tracts, pamphlets, letters, and dialogues—not in the turgid, polysyllabic manner of a university pedant, but simply and directly.
The Admonition and False Injunction of 1616
In 1613, just as Galileo published his Letters on the Solar Spots, an openly Copernican writing, the first attack came from a Dominican friar and professor of ecclesiastical history in Florence, Father Lorini. Preaching on All Soul’s Day, Lorini said that Copernican doctrine violated Scripture, which clearly places Earth, and not the Sun at the center of the universe. What, if Copernicus were right, would be the sense of Joshua 10:13 which says “So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven” or Isaiah 40:22 that speaks of “the heavens stretched out as a curtain” above “the circle of the earth”? Pressured later to apologize for his attack, Lorini later said that he “said a couple of words to the effect that the doctrine of Ipernicus [sic], or whatever his name is, was against Holy Scripture.”
Galileo responded to criticism of his Copernican views in a December 1613 Letter to Castelli. In his letter, Galileo argued that the Scripture—although truth itself—must be understood sometimes in a figurative sense. A reference, for example, to “the hand of God” is not meant to be interpreted as referring to a five-fingered appendage, but rather to His presence in human lives. Given that the Bible should not be interpreted literally in every case, Galileo contended, it is senseless to see it as supporting one view of the physical universe over another. “Who,” Galileo asked, “would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?”
Galileo hoped that his Letter to Castelli might foster a reconciliation of faith and science, but it only served to increase the heat. His enemies accused him of attacking Scripture and meddling in theological affairs. One among them, Father Lorini, raised the stakes for the battle when, on February 7, 1615, he sent to the Roman Inquisition a modified copy of Galileo’s Letter to Castelli. He attached his own comments to his submission.
…Aware of the move against him, Galileo wrote to a friend, Monsignor Dini, asking that his letters be forwarded to the influential Cardinal Bellarmine, the Church’s chief theologian, and—if it could be arranged—Pope Paul V. Unfortunately for Galileo, the seventy-four-year old Cardinal Bellarmine “was no friend of novelties” (although, unlike some of Galileo’s other detractors, he had at least looked through a telescope and given—in 1611—an audience to Galileo). In his innate conservatism he saw the Copernican universe as threatening to the social order. To Bellarmine and much of the Church’s upper echelon, the science of the matter was beyond their understanding—and in many cases their interest. They cared about administration and preserving the power of the papal superstate more than they did getting astronomical facts right.
…With “nineteen centuries of organized thought piling up to smother him,” Galileo pleaded—in a powerful summary of thoughts on Scriptural interpretation and the evidence concerning the nature of the universe—his case in his Letter to the Grand Duchess. He asked that his idea not be condemned “without understanding it, without hearing it, without even having seen it.” Galileo’s eloquent Letter was forwarded to Rome where, in the words of one historian, “it sank out of sight as softly as a penny in a snowbank.”
…Summoned before Bellarmine on February 25, 1616 and admonished, Galileo—according to a witness, Cardinal Oregius—”remained silent with all his science and thus showed that no less praiseworthy than his mind was his pious disposition.” Oregius’ account, and Galileo’s own writings, indicate that Galileo did not “refuse to obey” the Church’s admonition.
…The Trial of 1633
Galileo’s admonition stopped the Copernican movement dead in its tracks. For Galileo, his admonition marked the beginning of a period of silence. He busied himself with such tasks as using tables of the moons of Jupiter to develop a chronometer for measuring longitude at sea. He endured his rheumatism, enjoyed the attention of his daughter, Maria Celeste, and adjusted to a world which elevated mindless conformism over scientific understanding.
In 1623, Galileo received some hopeful news: Cardinal Maffeo Barberini had been elected Pope. Unlike the dull and mean-tempered Pope Paul V, the new Pope Urban VIII held a generally positive view of the arts and science. Writing from Rome, the Pope’s private secretary, Secretary of the Briefs Ciampoli, urged Galileo to resume publication of his ideas: “If you would resolve to commit to print those ideas that you still have in mind, I am quite certain that they would be most acceptable to His Holiness, who never ceases from admiring your eminence and preserves intact his attachment for you. You should not deprive the world of your productions.”
Pope Urban VIII
In the early years of his reign, Pope Urban VIII held long audiences with Galileo. Encouraged by a Pope who seemed open to renewed debate on the merits of the Copernican system (so long as the arguments fell short of purporting to be a definite refutation of the Earth-centered universe), Galileo began work on a book that would eventually prove his undoing, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems .
On December 24, 1629, Galileo told friends in Rome that he had completed work on his 500-page Dialogue. The Dialogue has been described as “the story of the mind of Galileo.” The book reveals Galileo as physicist and astronomer, sophisticate and sophist, polemicist and polished writer. Unlike the works of Copernicus and Kepler, Galileo’s Dialogue was a book for the educated public, not specialists. Although using the form of a debate among three Italian gentlemen, Galileo marshaled a variety of arguments to lead his readers to one inexorable conclusion: Copernicus was right. The character Salviati, a person of “sublime intellect,” clearly speaks for Galileo in arguing for a Sun-centered system. Sagredo is a Venetian nobleman, open-minded and hesitant to draw conclusions—a good listener. Simplico is the straw man of the debate, a stubborn, literal-minded defender of the Earth-centered universe.
Early news from Rome gave Galileo reason for optimism that his book would soon be published. The Vatican’s chief licenser, Niccolo Riccardi, reportedly promised his help and said that theological difficulties could be overcome. When Galileo arrived in Rome in May 1630, he wrote: “His Holiness has begun to treat of my affairs in a spirit which allows me to hope for a favorable result.” Urban VIII reiterated his previously stated view that if the book treated the contending views hypothetically and not absolutely, the book could be published.
Reading the book for the first time, chief licenser Riccardi came to see the book as less hypothetical—and therefore more problematic—than he expected it to be. Riccardi demanded that the Preface and conclusion to revised to be more consistent with the Pope’s position. In August 1630, in the midst of his required revising, Galileo received a letter from his friend Benedetto Castelli in Rome urging him, for “weighty reasons” which he “not wish to commit to paper,” to print the Dialogue in Florence “as soon as possible.” Galileo’s Jesuit opponents in Rome were aiming to block publication.
Riccardi seemed paralyzed with indecision. Caught between two powerful forces, he did nothing as Galileo fretted that his great work might never see the light of day. “The months and the years pass,” Galileo complained, “my life wastes away, and my work is condemned to rot.”
Finally, reluctantly (“dragged by the hair,” according to one account), Riccardi gave the green light. The first copy of Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems came off the press in February 1632. The book, which quickly sold out, soon became the talk of the literary public.
…By late summer, Galileo’s hopes turned to fears when he learned that orders had come from Rome to suspend publication of his book. On September 5, the full scope of Galileo’s problems became clearer when Pope Urban told Francesco Niccolini, who had come to the Vatican to protest the suspension decision, “Your Galileo has ventured to meddle in things that he ought not and with the most grave and dangerous subjects that can be stirred up these days.” Jesuit enemies of Galileo had convinced the Pope that the Dialogue was nothing but a thinly-veiled brief for the Copernican model. The Pope complained that Galileo and Ciampoli deceived him, assuring him that the book would comply with papal instructions and then circumventing them. The Pope seemed especially embittered by Galileo’s decision to put the Pope’s own argument concerning the tides into the mouth of the simple-minded Simplico—an attempt, as he saw it, to ridicule him.
The Pope swung the machinery of the Church into motion. He appointed a special commission to investigate the Galileo matter. Riccardi, the chief licenser, was severely lectured. Ciampoli was exiled to obscure posts, never to return to Rome.
Galileo, too, became angry. His noble goal of spreading scientific awareness to the public was being frustrated by a narrow-minded bureaucracy intent on preserving its own power. He believed he had done no wrong. He had been authorized to write about Copernicanism, had followed the required form, revised his work to meet censors’ objections, and obtained a license. What more could authorities expect? How could the law reach him when he had acted with such care?
The water in which Galileo found himself soon became even deeper. The special commission’s report to the Pope outlined a series of indictments against Galileo. On September 15, the Pope turned the matter over to the Inquisition. Eight days later, the General Congregation declared—in what would come as a shock to Galileo—that he had violated the 1616 (so-called) injunction against teaching, holding, or writing about Copernican theory.
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—Ibid.
Eventually, on May 10, 1633, Galileo was convicted by the Inquisition of a “strong suspicion of heresy,” a lesser charge than actual heresy.
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On the morning of June 22, 1633, Galileo, dressed in the white shirt of penitence, entered the large hall of the Inquisition building. He knelt and listened to his sentence: “Whereas you, Galileo, the son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine…” The reading continued for seventeen paragraphs:
“And, so that you will be more cautious in future, and an example for others to abstain from delinquencies of this sort, we order that the book Dialogue of Galileo Galilei be prohibited by public edict. We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure.
“As a salutary penance we impose on you to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. And we reserve to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking off, the whole or part of the said penalties and penances.
“This we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, order and reserve by this or any other better manner or form that we reasonably can or shall think of. So we the undersigned Cardinals pronounce.”
Seven of the ten cardinals signed the sentence.
Following the reading of the sentence, Galileo knelt to recite his abjuration:
“...[D]esiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this strong suspicion, reasonably conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me....
“I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.
“I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.”
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—Ibid.
Old, sickly,
and defeated, Galileo, no intransigent, fanatical devotee of the scientific cause,
bowed to the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church and consigned himself under
house arrest to gradual decline and death. He was a prisoner of conscience to
the end.
Public domain image
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Saint Joan of Arc—burned by the Roman Catholic Church.
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