At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more reasonable than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just.
Pope Benedict XVISince politics fundamentally should be a moral enterprise, the church in this sense has something to say about politics.
Pope Benedict XVIFaith was intended precisely for the simple, but the quest for certainty and simplicity becomes dangerous when it leads to fanaticism and narrow-mindedness. When reason as such becomes suspect, then faith itself becomes falsified.
Pope Benedict XVIMaterial possessions, in themselves, are good. We would not survive for long without money, clothing and shelter. We must eat in order to stay alive. Yet if we are greedy, if we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, then we make our possessions into a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.
Pope Benedict XVI