Behind him, his uncle was speaking to Vitelleschi. “Muzio, reassure me that this will achieve more than I sacrifice.”
“Your Holiness.” Vitelleschi acknowledged the command, and paused. At length. “I have repeated several times in advising Your Holiness that it is the doctrine that must be our grounding. I confess alarm at the prospect of further reforms so soon after the Council of Trent, but we cannot ignore what seems so clearly to be messages from our future brethren in Christ.”
“And the truth of those messages?” Cardinal Barberini was more of a skeptic about this than either of the two older men. He would cheerfully admit he was no natural philosopher—was not any kind of philosopher or theologian, come to it—but he did make a point of patronizing those who were advancing the arts, letters and sciences. Leave aside the essential implausibility of the story—”Ring of Fire,” indeed!—and it resolved to this: that the Americans had more and better devices and engines and weapons than anyone else.
One could either believe that a secret coterie of geniuses had gotten ahead of the rest of the world in artifice and invention, and sprung like a deus ex machina onto the stage of the Germanies with their marvels fully formed, or that they had been hurled back in time three hundred years from an age when such things were commonplace. Perhaps the older generation, unused to seeing what modern natural philosophy could do, might see something miraculous and wonderful in the American engines and weapons. But Antonio Barberini had seen demonstrations of all manner of newly discovered principles and the only feeling they stirred was envy that elsewhere there were better—scientists, to use the new word—than he had been able to attract to his own salon. Yet.
By itself, that was no problem. After all, the watchword of natural philosophy was what worked. Galileo had seen to that, with his trials and experiments. What matter the outlandish story the inventor told, if his invention actually worked? Who cared that he was changing fashion throughout Rome, or was the creator of a string of scandals?
Yet the older generation were looking at the wonders Grantville had released as a token of the truth of their claim to be from the future. And when something that necessarily did not admit of proof—such as religious doctrine, or political theory—was being expounded, the speaker’s truthfulness in one sphere was often taken as a measure of his honesty in another.
Both of the older men were looking at him now. “Your Holiness, Father-General, it may be that the Americans can prove Galileo’s claims. I for one would welcome it, frankly. The discussions at the Inquisition grow tiresome, and privately the astronomers are saying that Galileo’s claims are helpful, even if he cannot prove them. But that logically says nothing about the truth of their other claims.”
“It does furnish me with a good excuse, though, Antonio.” His Holiness Urban VIII had developed a twinkle that was literally as well as figuratively avuncular.
Barberini seethed inside. These two had concocted something between them, decided on something, and were now mocking him! Or as much mockery as the constitutionally humorless Vitelleschi was capable. “Does the pope require an excuse in matters of faith?” he asked, knowing they probably had an answer already.
“Certainly,” Urban said. “If the pope was not visibly commanded by God to reverse himself, what price infallibility?”
“Which is no more than a tradition!” Barberini snapped, regretting it immediately. “Your Holiness, I most humbly apologize for my tone.”
“And so you should,” Urban said. “But as to infallibility being a tradition, yes, it is. And a most valuable tradition it is, for without it there is no last authority on the Church’s teaching and thus no certainty.”
“And so we need an excuse to proceed from what is certainly wrong to what is probably right?” Barberini smiled to show he jested.
“Indeed.”
“And there is more,” Vitelleschi said. “We will have some chance to see the American priest in a sore trial of his wit and learning. A man may lie well and convincingly at his leisure. Under pressure even the most glib will err.”
Understanding dawned on Barberini then. “The Galileo affair is not the real trial?”