Free Republic

The university announced on Tuesday that the so-called “Galileo manuscript” – a one-page document that includes a letter accompanying the astronomer’s presentation of his telescope and his supposed notes observing Jupiter’s moons through his telescope in 1610 – was crafted by Tobia Nicotra, a well-known forger from Italy who was fined and sentenced to two years in jail for crafting fake Galileo documents in 1934. He also infamously produced fake autographs of Christopher Columbus and Mozart. The possibility came to light in May when the Georgia State University professor Nick Wilding expressed “serious doubts about its authenticity”. Wilding found while...

Prelate forbade clergy from administering last rites during the pandemicBERGAMO, Italy (ChurchMilitant.com) - An Italian bishop who forbade priests from offering sacraments to the dying during the coronavirus outbreak has suspended a priest for leading a pilgrimage against the nation's vaccine mandates and "Green Pass."Bishop Francesco Beschi of Bergamo in northern Italy relieved Fr. Emanuele Personeni from all pastoral duties just before Personeni, the parish priest of Mapello and Ambivere, began his anti-mandate pilgrimage across the country on Friday. "I will travel on foot or by bicycle out of solidarity with those who are deprived of the right to use...

Italy’s far-right League party intervened on Sunday to block efforts by a Muslim association to turn a former hospital chapel into a mosque. The Muslim group last week made the highest offer for the chapel in the northern city of Bergamo at an auction organized by a local hospital, outbidding the Romanian Orthodox Church which had been using the building for its religious services. But the project proved short-lived, with League leaders in the wealthy Lombardy region, which includes Bergamo, announcing they would halt the sale by using a 2004 law that enables them to intervene and safeguard cultural sites....

Italian author and veteran journalist Oriana Fallaci goes on trial Monday, charged with defaming Islam in a 2004 book. Fallaci, who lives in New York, was not expected to attend the hearing in Bergamo, northern Italy. Muslim activist Adel Smith filed a lawsuit against Fallaci, charging that some passages in her book, "The Strength of Reason," were offensive to Islam. Smith's lawyer cited a phrase from the book that refers to Islam as "a pool ... that never purifies." Last year, a judge ordered that she stand trial on charges of violating an Italian law that prohibits "outrage to religion."...