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Show HAS THE WORLD PROGRESSED MUCH? Compare Burning of Bruno With Intolerance Today For believing and saying that the earth' moves, daring to think for himself, and speaking opinions against some narrow religious beliefs, that great man, Giordana Bruno, was captured by order of the ruling church in 1600. There are those who would be as intolerant today. The Inquisition threw him in prison. There they tortured him for seven years. The suffering he endured will never toe told. When death stared at him, he was brought forth for trial. The living skeleton of skin and bones was wrapped about by chains. He could not walk, was dragged to the judgment seat before the Pope.- There he was cursed, damned, declared a church heretic and sentenced to be burned in the courtyard in front of the Pope's residence. No time was lost in executing the sentence. If delayed, natural death might claim the victim. The stake had, before sentence, been prepared. The fuel had been gathered and blessed by the Pope ... all was ready. Emaciated Bruno was bound to the post of death. The sacred faggots were arranged close about him. The priests blessed both the fuel and the flarrTe carrier, then ordered the carrier to execute his mission. He approached, torch in hand. Bruno watched him as he came. The priests carried an immense crucifix in front of the victim and and held it there as the angry flames ate their way to the shriveled form. An enormous mob of insane, demented, ignorant fiends mocked the thinker and chanted hymns as they milled about the 'execution blaze. Through the flames, slowly the quivering body was seen to shrink. It sputtered, crackled and burned. Only the chains that had bound the body and the ashes, their vengeance could not destroy, remained. A great light, a beacon of the year 1600, guiding an ignorant world toward intelligence and reason, had been put out . . . Bruno was dead. |