The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-02-19
BRUNO AND THE EVENING TELE-
GRAM.

Scholars generally know the story of Calico,
how he first declared that the world was round, and
told the story of the universe as it is understood to-
day, and how, under bigotry, they gave him the
choice Of retractng or sharing the fate of Bruno,
who burned at the stake; how he did retract,
but he came out from the hall and looked at the
sun, he murmured to himself: ''But it does move"
S L. Evening Telegram.
Last week we gave the facts dealing with the
condemnation and Imprisonment of the astronomer
Calico. We address ourselves this morning to the
case of Giordano Bruno, condemned for blasQhemy
and burned at the stake. But first let us ask what
purpose does the Telegram hope to serve by open
ing old wounds, and rellindling old fires now dy-
ing out, if not extinct? Why should we call upon
the dead to answer to us for that which they have
already given an account before the eternal Judge
And why add to our divisions now by contending
over who was the guilty and the innocent then? Is
it not better to ask how all these sores may be
healed? Let us, if we can, forget the past, heal
the present and save the future The barriers
which divided our fathers are melting away: and
although there are sharp conflicts and ringing
blows still to be heard, better wisdom is pleading
with men,
The way to unity is peace, but there can be no
peace if history be perverted and truth sacrificed
for a momentary triumph. With Tennyson we are
constrained to say:
"But though we love kind peace so well,
We dare not, even by silence sanction lies
1t might be safe our censures to withdraw:
And yet, my Lords, not well: there is a higher
law"
In our boyhood we were nauseated with the stencil
Of the "Gunpowder Plot" of the "St. Cecilia Mas
sacres," of the Spanish Inquisition" of the "St
Bartholomew Massacre of "Gaileo" and his ~E
pur 81 mouve-but it does move" pure invention
of French infdel. No man pretending to some
learning, to say nothing of scholarship now
charges the Catholic Church with being in any
way accessory to these plots and massacres Now,
when these ghosts have been laid by the sceptre of
historical criticism, the ghost of an apostate
priest, dead for than three hundred years. is
called up to testify to the atrocious tyranny of the
Church of Rome.
Who was Giordano Bruno, to whom statue
was erected by the atheists of Rome few wears
ago, and whose more than life-sized bust dsgraces
the Place St Michel, Paris, placed there by the
atheists of Francel When we last saw the statue
a colossal wreath of "immortelles" rested against
the plinth supporting the pillar. The wreath bore
this inscription in French: From the free-think-
ers and atheists of Marseilles. Nj Dieu nj Maitre
No God, master" Now we can get line on
Bruno from the character of the men who worship
him.
Glordano Bruno was born in the village of Nola
Italy, in 1548, and in 1872 he was ordained priest
In 1916 he left his monastery and began to attack
the doctrines of Christianity. From Naples he
went to Rome, then to Geneva, where he became
Calvinist, though at Venice, six months after his
perversion he stouty denied his Identification with
Calvinism. This much however, is certain; he was
communicated by the Calvinist Council and was
forced to leave Genoa.
We next hear of him in England where, during
the year 1888, he enjoyed the favor of Queen Eliz
abeth and the patronage of Sir Philip Sidney. who
wrote the Defense of Poesy." Bruno the next
year visited Oxford University, where he was not
permitted to lecture and for which rebuff he sair
lied the professors beer-guzzers In 1886 he re-
turned to Paris and made several Intellectual at
tempts to be reconciled to the Catholic Church
but refused to accept the condition imposed which
was that he should return to his monastery. He
then proceeded to Germany, where he showed the
same spirit of insolent self-importance as in Eng
land. In Helmstadt he was accommodated bv