ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

New Zealand Tablet, 26 November 1908, Page 21

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

W. G.— The C.T.S. edition of Milner's End of Religious Controversy may be procured at a cheap rate from any Catholic bookseller advertising in our pages. His Letters to a Prelendary are, we think, out of print, but any Catholic bookseller will inform you. ' IN AMBIGUO.' — A number of extracts from reviews appear elsewhere in this issue. But we have absolutely no direct acquaintance with the work, and therefore cannot speak of it from personal knowledge. m CONSTANT READER. — The nearest approach to the North Pole was made by Commander Peary in 1906 — 87deg. 6min. North. The next highest record was achieved by Captain Cagni, of the Abruzzi expedition, in 1900 — 86deg. 33min. North. Nansen's ' Farthest North ' was 86deg. 13mm. 6sec. INQUIRER.— (I) Papal Bulls are so called from the ' bulla ' or leaden seal attached to them. Your friend is confounding Bulls and dogmatic decrees of General Councils. Papal Bulls may refer to all sorts of subjects — personal, disciplinary, doctrinal, etc. They are not issued (as your friend thinks) by a Pope presiding over a Council. The methods and objects and circumstances of their issue are, however, too numerous to mention in detail here. Occasionally (as in the case of the Bull Apostolicce Curce (dealt with elsewhere in this issue), a Papal Bull deals with a dogmatic fact ; in that case, according to the general agreement of theologians, it falls within the category of infallible utterances. (2) Your friend's story about the Papal Bull affirming that the sun moves round the earth, and forcing every Catholic priest to assent to this, is simply a preposterous perversion of the facts of the trial of Galileo by the Congregation of the Inquisition in 1616 and 1633. There was no Papal Bull issued in connection with this case. The decrees issued by the Inquisition in the years named were not even ratified or signed by the Popes. There was, and is, no dogmatic decree bearing upon the motion of the earth around the sun. The motion of the earth around the sun was freely taught in Rome long before Galileo's time ; Galileo's teaching would never have been interfered with had he not gone outside his science and set up to interpret the Bible in support of his theory. His treatment by the Inquisition was gentleness itself compared with what befell Kepler and Tycho Brahe at the hands of Reformed laymen .and divines for the same teachings. Luther was strongly opposed to ,the scientific theory that the *earth moves around the sun. Catholics exercise with the utmost freedom the right of blaming the inquisitors for stepping outside their proper functions ,in dealing with Galileo. But their act" was purely disciplinary; it involved- none of the cruelties commonly practised on accused in every country, Protestant and Catholic, at the time; and it in no- way.- involves the doctrine of infallibility or the teaching authority of .the Church. Any Catholic bookseller advertising in o.ur columns could send you, for two or three pence, a brochure dealing with the Galileo case.