the 1992 Galileo address

In 1992, Pope John Paul II addressed the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the Galileo affair, acknowledging historical errors and tensions in the relationship between science and theology. This was not the first permission for heliocentric works: the relevant prohibition had been relaxed in 1757, and Copernicus’s works were removed from the Index of Forbidden Books in 1835. Thus, 1992 marks an important public reassessment of the Galileo affair, not the date when the Vatican first “recognized” heliocentrism. It came 31 years after Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 spaceflight. The illustration is AI-generated.