Yesterday I finished reading John Paul the Great by Peggy Noonan. I was less than impressed. It’s not that it is a bad book per se, but it just wasn’t that interesting to me. I prefer books that are much more biography oriented if I am going to be reading about a figure. Her book was much more about her personal experiences with things relating to the Pope.

I’ve read Witness to Hope, the weighty official biography by George Weigel, and so I guess I know many details already.

One thing that I did learn and found quite amusing was this:

At a meeting of the Synod of Bishops he made his way slowly and haltingly to the front of the crowd. He looked out at the assembled prelates and muttered what Galileo had said after being forced to recant his discovery that the earth revolves around the sun. “Eppur si muove.” And still, it moves.

One must find humor in that and recognize that the Pope himself had a sense of humor over the centuries-old issue. To me it makes those who hold up the condemnation of Galileo as one of the Church’s gravest errors seem silly. Living in this day and age, everyone knows that Galileo turned out to be correct. Even John Paul did.

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