SOURCE: "Epilogue: 'The Greatness of Galileo Is Known to All,'" in Galileo Galilei: Toward a Resolution of 350 Years of Debate—1633-1983, edited by Paul Cardinal Poupard, with the "Epilogue" translated by Ian Campbell from a speech given in 1979, Duquesne University Press, 1987, pp. 195-200.

In the following essay, first presented as a speech in 1979 and reprinted in 1987, Pope John Paul II undertakes to reconcile the views of the Catholic Church with those of Galileo, arguing that Galileo was not in fact in opposition to the Church.

During the centenary commemoration of the birth of Albert Einstein,¹ celebrated by the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences on November 10, 1979, Pope John Paul II spoke on the profound harmony between the truth of faith and the truth of science in the following terms.

I feel myself to be fully one with my predecessor Pius XI, and with the two who followed him...