395 Years Later, How Little Has Changed

On February 24, 1616, the Catholic Church declared the writings of Copernicus, who concluded from astronomical observations that the earth revolved around the sun, were "in error" and not to be read or discussed.

The idea that the earth was not the center of the world directly contradicted church teaching of biblical scripture and was therefore heretical.

This declaration led directly to the 1633 trial of Galileo on charges of heresy.

In 1758 the Catholic Church dropped the general prohibition of books advocating heliocentrism from the Index of Forbidden Books. It did not, however, explicitly rescind the decisions issued by the Inquisition in its judgement of 1633 against Galileo, or lift the prohibition of uncensored versions of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus or Galileo's Dialogue. As a result, the precise doctrinal status of heliocentrism remained unclear, and many Catholic scientists continued to pay lip service to the view that it could only be treated as a hypothesis.

As late as 1990 - just 21 years ago - Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict the XVI, refused to exonerate Galileo.

Read that again - 21 years after man landed on the moon, the man who is now His Popey Rapeyness would not admit that the Church was wrong about the earth being the center of the universe.

How exactly does this differ from the freakazoid success in virtually eliminating the scientific fact of evolution from being taught in public schools?