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38 Unit 5, Chapter 22 “A Friendly Commissar,” from Rallying Cries by Eric Bentley. Published by
Northwestern University Press. Copyright © 1987 by Eric Bentley. All rights
reserved. Used by permission of Northwestern University Press.
wh10a-IDR-0522_P15 11/25/2003 11:04 AM Page 39
FIRENZUOLA. Very good, very good. I am not GALILEO. By the cardinals. Are you saying they’re a
employing our inquisitorial method to torment lot of power-hungry politicians?
you. Merely to bring the truth home to you. You FIRENZUOLA. Heaven forbid! I’ve got you too excited,
have certainly brought home to me your illu- Galilei. Let me ask you an academic question.
sion. Quietly. Galilei, after you left this morn- What is a church?
ing, the tribunal dismissed your appeal. GALILEO. What?
Unanimously. FIRENZUOLA. Not what does it stand for. What is it?
GALILEO. What? My book is to be banned? GALILEO. An institution, of course—
FIRENZUOLA. Which was inevitable, as I told you in FIRENZUOLA. An institution. Among other institu-
advance. tions of this world. Matching itself against other
GALILEO. The tribunal will not even entertain the institutions of this world. Matching itself as to
possibility that the earth moves round the sun? what? As to power. Its power against theirs. Or
FIRENZUOLA. Will not even entertain the possibility. it will no longer exist in this world. What way
Pause. out is there, except to exist only in other
GALILEO. It’s unbelievable. worlds? But the Catholic Church was placed
FIRENZUOLA. Tell me why it is unbelievable. here by Christ Himself. Upon this rock. Upon
GALILEO. Because what my book provides is not this earth.
opinion but proof. GALILEO. I’m naive in politics, the point is not new.
FIRENZUOLA. Proof of what? But how, in God’s holy name, is the church
GALILEO. Of the truth. Obviously. threatened by wholly unpolitical activities such
FIRENZUOLA. The truth. Obviously. Is what is “obvi- as mine? How is it threatened by the motion of
ous” to Galilei “obvious” to a tribunal of the the earth around the sun?
Holy Office? Could it be? FIRENZUOLA. I think [Lord Cardinal] Bellarmine
GALILEO. Be plain with me, Father Commissar. must have explained that years ago.
Proving things true has been my life’s business, GALILEO. He said all new views were wrong.
my personal vocation. Proving certain things FIRENZUOLA. Would that we still had his simplicity!
true to the Holy Office has occupied me contin- Pause. The church is a fabric of traditions, noth-
uously for over fifteen years. The results are in ing else. None of these traditions must be bro-
that manuscript. Now if truth did not interest ken or the fabric as whole would fray, wear
the Holy Office, what would that show? through, disintegrate. Now, if Bellarmine could
FIRENZUOLA. What would that show? feel that a generation ago, how much more
GALILEO. A career, a whole life based on a total strongly must any good Catholic feel it today!
misunderstanding. A life thrown away. Wasted. Protestant power was not stopped, as
FIRENZUOLA. I should not have enjoyed formulating Bellarmine hoped. Throughout Central and
those phrases. Northern Europe, a so-called war of religion
© McDougal Littell Inc. All rights reserved.
GALILEO. Then it is so? There is no interest in truth has been raging fifteen years, and no end in
here in Rome at all? sight. Not just that, but—
FIRENZUOLA. I am not trying to instruct you but to GALILEO, stopping him rudely. Yes, yes! Silence.
help you to . . . certain conclusions. But this preoccupation of yours with power and
GALILEO, suddenly. Do you think you’re God? But the struggle for power, this disregard of truth
God could never be indifferent to truth. You and the struggle for truth, this is just your view-
can? Firenzuola, you’re a human being, aren’t point, Firenzuola, an inquisitor’s viewpoint. The
you, let me address you as such. Are you totally cardinals of the Catholic Church could not, dare
unconcerned with truth? Silence. Then what are not, permit themselves—
you concerned with? FIRENZUOLA, cutting in just as abruptly. You
FIRENZUOLA, unruffled. What is a Commissar con- appealed to them from Scheiner. Would you
cerned with? now appeal to them from me?
GALILEO, bitterly. Power. Just naked power. I sup- GALILEO. Yes. I reject this “private conference.”
pose that’s what you are trying to tell me. Much louder. Let me go back before the cardi-
FIRENZUOLA. Let’s say administration. A Commissar nals. Let me set my proofs before the tribunal.
has very little power. He does what he’s told. FIRENZUOLA, gently. Very good. I can now
complete my report. This morning, Galilei, five GALILEO. No, no, no! I had heard the Jesuits were
of the six cardinals voted for your execution. slippery; I had heard the Inquisition was arbi-
Pause. By burning. Pause. At the stake. If, like trary and had not dared to believe it. It’s true.
Scheiner, I am suspected of lying, you may send But they are not the church. And a final appeal
Castelli to check. still remains open, the appeal that all Catholics
GALILEO. Burning at the stake! may make when others have failed.
FIRENZUOLA. The verdict was halted by a single FIRENZUOLA. The appeal to the pope? You have
opposing vote, but till tomorrow morning only. already appealed to him.
Hence the decisive importance of this meeting GALILEO. The book was snatched from his grasp by
this afternoon. the Inquisition. As a good Catholic, I demand
GALILEO. Not burning at the stake! the right to present my case to him in person.
FIRENZUOLA. I see you have believed me. FIRENZUOLA. Today? At a couple of hours’ notice?
Silence. GALILEO. That is for you to say. I don’t mind if the
GALILEO, suddenly. I have been living in a fool’s tribunal does not meet tomorrow!
paradise. FIRENZUOLA. The pope cannot commute a sentence
FIRENZUOLA. Had I said so myself, at the outset, passed by the Holy Office.
you wouldn’t have believed me. GALILEO. Will the Holy Office pass sentence if the
GALILEO. My whole life has been based on a mis- pope agrees to state in public what he has already
understanding. All these efforts, these years, conceded in private?
have been wasted. FIRENZUOLA. Namely?
FIRENZUOLA. And there is very little time left. GALILEO. That the earth moves round the sun.
GALILEO. For what? FIRENZUOLA. That, my dear Galilei, would be more
FIRENZUOLA. Even as the captive Arab king can than his triple crown is worth.
escape the stake by a last-minute genuflection [to GALILEO, loudly. I believe in my Barberini [Pope
bend the knee or touch one knee to the floor as Urban VIII]! I have the right to see him!
in worship] before the cross, so you can escape it Silence.
by one small token gesture of submission. FIRENZUOLA. I shall try to get you an audience for
GALILEO. What? this evening.
FIRENZUOLA. Read this. Hands him a scroll.
GALILEO, reading tonelessly. “I, Galileo Galilei, do
hereby confess to the sin of disobedience,
Activity Options
which sin, however, was committed uninten- 1. Making Judgments With a group of your class-
tionally, in zeal prompted by idle vanity, and not mates, plan, rehearse, and give a performance of
in malice as an enemy of Holy Church.” this excerpt for the class.
Silence. 2. Analyzing Issues As a class, discuss Galileo’s
40 Unit 5, Chapter 22