Speculations

This week I watched the Giordano Bruno cartoon, in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It was eye opening.

I knew that, like Galileo Galilei, he had been punished by the Catholic Church in Rome. I did not know, though, the similarity between the two cases; why was Bruno burned at the stake, and Galileo was allowed to die under house arrest?

I am Catholic by birth, but never was instructed in the mysteries of the Church: no first communion, no confirmation, no religious education; so I am not the best person to give a scholarly interpretation of both men and their punishment.

It sucks.

I speculate that Galileo was spared because he was a personal friend of Pope Urban VII.

I am sure to this day, there are Catholics who do not agree with me, they may not even agree with the Neil deGrasse Tyson great TV program.