unbridled moral turpitude of the clergy.
Charged with heresy -- endorsing and promoting the Copernican theory that the Sun, not the Earth is the center of our solar system -- Italian philosopher and pantheist Giordano Bruno is expelled from the Dominican Order in 1576. He aggravates his case by arguing that the physical universe is infinite and asserting that human beings are not unique because the presence of life, even that of rational beings, may not be confined to planet Earth. He signs his death warrant when he affirms that absolute knowledge is a myth and that there are no limits to the advancement of learning. He is burned alive. [In 2000, on the quadricentennial commemoration of his execution, the Vatican issues a statement, troubling in its ambiguity and cynicism, insisting that Bruno’s death was “a sad episode of Christian history” but that his writings were “incompatible with Christian thinking and he remains a heretic.”]
Luther, the firebrand reformer, drives a wedge that irreparably widens the abyss dividing Christians and alters the course of western civilization. His ferocious anti-Semitism, his venomous tracts provide the template for the modern hatred of the Jews. His last vituperations, three days before his death, call for the expulsion of all Jews from Germany.
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