Frank felt really uncomfortable about that. Was Mazzare in danger of a visit from the Inquisition as well? He didn’t want to think about that. For all that Grantville’s priest sometimes intimidated him, Frank genuinely liked the man. He didn’t think he knew anybody who didn’t. There was nothing ostentatious about Larry Mazzare, but he could have served as a poster model for Priest, Catholic, small town, finest example thereof.
Mazzare sighed, deeply. “It was all very amusing when it was three hundred years ago, you know, Frank. Everyone talking about Galileo like he was some plucky pioneer, fighting against the forces of medieval reaction. Of course, when you looked into it, it wasn’t that simple. Just like it never really is. And it’s even less simple now that we’re here, of course.”
“How’s that?” Frank asked, intrigued in spite of the slightly icky sight of a priest being very definitely human about something. Being brought up the way he had—which was a long, long way away from anything that could even be slightly described as traditional religious beliefs, Christian or otherwise—made ministers and priests seem like slightly awesome figures to Frank Stone. Either ogres—like the televangelists, or the mad-eyed Reverend Green—or uncanny wizards, like Father Mazzare. Watching him in what was unmistakably an irritated mode was unnerving.
“Well, to start with, his trial’s late. In the universe we came from, it would have been over by now. He was found guilty and sentenced in June of 1633—almost nine months ago—whereas in this universe his trial hasn’t even started yet.” Mazzare took another sip of his coffee. “I don’t pretend to understand the mathematics of it, but they call it ‘the butterfly effect.’ You know, a butterfly flaps its wings in South America somewhere, and it affects how tornados form in Kansas.”
Frank nodded. He’d watched Jurassic Park, too, and at least knew the buzzwords for chaos math.
“Well, it seems that we brought some butterflies of our own. Pretty big ones. Somehow, in whatever complex ways, the Ring of Fire scrambled this ‘historic result’ just like it’s scrambled so many others. Galileo’s still in Florence in this timeline. In the old history, he’d been tried and was under house arrest by this date.”
“Eh? I thought he’d got burned at the stake?” Frank blurted that out, and regretted it. “Uh, sorry.”
Mazzare chuckled. “For astronomy? No, the Church has plenty of astronomers of its own. You’re probably mixing him up with Giordano Bruno, Frank, who was burned at the stake. No, you see the real story is that Galileo, to use the cop-show phrase, copped a plea to heresy. And, technically, that was right, he was a heretic.”
“What, for saying that the Earth went around the sun?”
“Well, that’s technically right, but doesn’t tell the whole story. Frank, do you know what heresy is to begin with?”
“Well, uh, it’s . . .” He thought about it for a moment. “There’s probably a proper definition, isn’t there? It’s not just disagreeing with the Church, is it?”
“Actually, that’s rather close to what the real definition is, if the ugly truth be told. It’s like this, and I’m simplifying here, you understand?”
Frank nodded.
“The Church is in the business of guiding people to Jesus, right?”
Nod.
“And, for an assortment of reasons that seem good to us, we have a whole hierarchy set up to decide the best way to go about it, yes?”
Nod. Frank wasn’t sure he got it, but this probably wasn’t the best time to pick an argument he wouldn’t know how to conduct, let alone win.
“And, again, for an assortment of reasons we think are good ones, the Church gets the last word with Catholics about what we ought to believe. That’s supposed to be one of the big differences between us and Protestants, by the way. They’re supposed to believe that it’s really down to each man with Scripture and his faith to find his best way to God. If the Reverend Jones were here right now, which he’s not, he’d be correcting me six ways from Sunday on the subject, but that’s about the theoretical size of it. I don’t suppose you followed the Rudolstadt Colloquy?”