He showed that Pope Urban VIII, in 1633, pressed on, directed, and promulgated the final condemnation, making himself in all these ways responsible for it.

And, finally, he showed that Pope Alexander VII, in 1664, by his bull--Speculatores domus Israel--attached to the Index, condemning "all books which affirm the motion of the earth," had absolutely pledged the papal infallibility against the earth's movement.

He also confessed that under the rules laid down by the highest authorities in the Church, and especially by Sixtus V and Pius IX, there was no escape from this conclusion.
Various theologians attempted to evade the force of the argument.

Some, like Dr.Ward and Bouix, took refuge in verbal niceties; some, like Dr.
Jeremiah Murphy, comforted themselves with declamation.

The only result was, that in 1885 came another edition of the Rev.Mr.Roberts's work, even more cogent than the first; and, besides this, an essay by that eminent Catholic, St.George Mivart, acknowledging the Rev.Mr.
Roberts's position to be impregnable, and declaring virtually that the Almighty allowed Pope and Church to fall into complete error regarding the Copernican theory, in order to teach them that science lies outside their province, and that the true priesthood of scientific truth rests with scientific investigators alone.( 84) (84) For the crushing answer by two eminent Roman Catholics to the sophistries cited--an answer which does infinitely more credit to the older Church that all the perverted ingenuity used in concealing the truth or breaking the force of it--see Roberts and St.George Mivart, as already cited.
In spite, then, of all casuistry and special pleading, this sturdy honesty ended the controversy among Catholics themselves, so far as fair-minded men are concerned.
In recalling it at this day there stand out from its later phases two efforts at compromise especially instructive, as showing the embarrassment of militant theology in the nineteenth century.
The first of these was made by John Henry Newman in the days when he was hovering between the Anglican and Roman Churches.