In this extraordinary document he accepts the long-anathematised Galileo as an exemplar of the quest for truth in a bewildering world; during John Paul II's papacy, the celebrated astronomer and physicist has gradually been transformed from an enemy of belief to a quester acknowledged by the Church.
22.
The holy governing synod declined to admit him to communion unless he acknowledged the Thirty-nine Articles of religion to be'in their plain literal sense and spirit'a full and perfect expression of the faith of the churches of England and Scotland, and to contain forty-four heresies; unless he renounced and anathematised the said heresies, the Thirty-nine Articles as containing them and the churches of England and Scotland as implicated in them; and further admitted the Greek church to be the Scumenical church, and were received into the same as a proselyte.
23.
The Pope will undoubtedly find occasion to assail our constitution because it does not tally with the Vatican's tendencies, which are to interfere in the internal concerns of various countries under the pretext of evangelizing the Catholic faithful [ & ] Who knows whether the Vatican will not consider anathematising us on the pretext that our constitution does not provide for the submission of our fellow countrymen of Catholic persuasion to the political interests of the Vatican or because we do not allow ourselves to be tempted by America's golden calf, to the feet of which the Vatican would bring its faithful
24.
The canons of the synod condemned and anathematised, ( in order ), the practices of : the condemnation of marriage, forbidding the eating of most forms of meat, urging slaves to flee their masters, arguing that married priests could not perform valid sacraments, condemning normal church services and holding their own, distributing church revenues without the consent of the bishop, remaining celibate for reasons other than holiness, reviling married persons and the celebration of Christian love-feasts, wearing certain types of ascetic clothing, women wearing men's clothing, women leaving their husbands, parents abandoning their children, children leaving their parents, women cutting off their hair, fasting on a Sunday, and refusal to honour Christian martyrs.
