<P> Maurice Finocchiaro, author of a book on the Galileo affair, notes that this is "a view of the relationship between biblical interpretation and scientific investigation that corresponds to the one advanced by Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina". Pope Pius XII (1939--1958) repeated his predecessor's teaching: </P> <P> The first and greatest care of Leo XIII was to set forth the teaching on the truth of the Sacred Books and to defend it from attack . Hence with grave words did he proclaim that there is no error whatsoever if the sacred writer, speaking of things of the physical order "went by what sensibly appeared" as the Angelic Doctor says, speaking either "in figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even among the most eminent men of science". For "the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately--the words are St. Augustine's--the Holy Spirit, Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things--that is the essential nature of the things of the universe--things in no way profitable to salvation"; which principle "will apply to cognate sciences, and especially to history", that is, by refuting, "in a somewhat similar way the fallacies of the adversaries and defending the historical truth of Sacred Scripture from their attacks". </P> <P> In 1664, Pope Alexander VII republished the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books) and attached the various decrees connected with those books, including those concerned with heliocentrism . He stated in a Papal Bull that his purpose in doing so was that "the succession of things done from the beginning might be made known (quo rei ab initio gestae series innotescat)". </P> <P> The position of the curia evolved slowly over the centuries towards permitting the heliocentric view . In 1757, during the papacy of Benedict XIV, the Congregation of the Index withdrew the decree which prohibited all books teaching the Earth's motion, although the Dialogue and a few other books continued to be explicitly included . In 1820, the Congregation of the Holy Office, with the pope's approval, decreed that Catholic astronomer Giuseppe Settele was allowed to treat the Earth's motion as an established fact and removed any obstacle for Catholics to hold to the motion of the Earth: </P>

What does the shape of the model show about the sun