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MODERN HISTORY SOURCEBOOK

Reading Guide

[Note: Reading Guides are meant as review aids for a particular text. They do indicate some of the questions a text raises.]

Answer the questions below.

Find your information from the sourcebook itself, or from your textbook.
You may use other sources, but indicate what they are is this is the basis of submitted class work.

Galilei Galileo: Letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany

1. How does Galileo differentiate between the study of physical science and the study of theology?
2. What differences does he see between them?
3. Does Galileo seem to believe in God?
4. What view does he have of the Bible? Why might this view upset Church authorities?
5. What were Galileo's views on the authority of the Church?
6. What problems for the Roman Catholic Church do you think statements such as these caused? From your reading elsewhere, how does the Church now characterize its claim to infallibility? [You could look this up in the New Catholic Encyclopedia]?