BERN, Switzerland - A woman beheaded after she was accused of causing a girl to spit pins and convulse was exonerated Wednesday, more than 200 years after she became the last person executed as a witch in Europe.
Well it's never too late to forgive, eh? Poor woman though, executed for such nonsense, but these were dark times she lived in. Hopefully we've moved on. Bad things happened in the past - the important thing is that we have learned from them (sadly, sometimetimes I wonder).
In 2000 Jon Paul II appologised for how the church had treated Galileo and that was 400 years ago.
Mind you there is a bit of an urban myth about that one.
Galileo asked the pope for permission to publish his views. The Pope said OK but you have to present the other side of the argument too.
The book was published but the "other side of the argument" was presented by a character who was a thinly disguised characature of the pope being made to look stupid by the more enlightened view of Galileo's character. The pope was furious and threw Galileo in gaol.