8 April 2025

For almost two thousand years, the world believed with Aristotle that the moon was a smooth, unblemished sphere. When Galileo got access to a telescope which magnified things by a factor of thirty, he discovered that it was ‘uneven, rough, full of cavities and prominences’.

If Aristotle  had got it wrong, could his view that the sun orbited the earth also be challenged. Galileo thought so. The Church disagreed. The Inquisition’s fear of change condemned Galileo and confined him to house arrest. But the truth will out. The apology took almost four centuries to come!

In the world of science, change took a very long time. In the Church too, it can be long in coming. Vision isn’t enough. We need to have faith, humility to change perspective and the resolve to do something about it! But the truth will out. Change cannot be stopped. As the Lord says:

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?