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TO FOREIGN, NATIONAL, AND RELIGION EDITORS:
Rael offers to help Giordano Bruno's descendants obtain compensation
from the Vatican
LAS VEGAS, March 20, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "The world should
never forget that it was the Catholic Church who burned Giordano Bruno
alive for stating more than 400 years ago that it's possible that
there are other planets and that there may even be life on those
planets," spiritual leader Rael declared after seeing a recent episode
of the new program "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" that featured a
segment about Bruno's "heresy."
"Despite its words of regret in 2000 for the barbaric death of
Giordano Bruno, the Vatican has never offered any apology or
compensation to his family, whose honor has been tarnished for
centuries," Rael added in a statement released today by the
International Raelian Movement. "I want to offer financial help to
Bruno's descendants so they can launch legal action against the
Vatican to obtain $100 million in compensation for the torture and
murder of their ancestor and reestablish their name and the honor of
the family."
In addition, Rael pointed out that Bruno's murder prevented humanity
from receiving a huge amount of scientific knowledge.
With that loss in mind, on February 17, 2004, the Raelian Movement
paid tribute to Bruno by holding a "Planetary Day of Mourning" in his
memory, including demonstrations asking for Bruno's rehabilitation.
"Rael himself went to the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, where Bruno, a
philosopher and defrocked monk, was burned alive on February 17,
1600," said Brigitte Boisselier, IRM spokesperson.
She pointed out that the Bruno family had to wait until February 18,
2000, exactly 400 years later, for Cardinal Angelo Sodarno,
undersecretary of state of the Vatican, to express the "deep regret"
of the Catholic Church for its death sentence against Giordano Bruno,
which Sodarno referred to as "a terrible death" and "a sad episode in
recent Christian history."
"Those regrets are not enough," Rael said in today's statement. "The
United Nations and all of the world's scientists should officially ask
the Vatican for a complete apology!"
He then extended an invitation to Bruno's descendants, asking them to
contact the Italian Raelian Movement.
"I want to offer them legal and financial help in filing their long
overdue suit against the Vatican," he said.
SOURCE Raelian Movement
-0- 03/20/2014
/CONTACT: Kasyo Perrier, 617-967-6179, usa@raelpress.org
/Web Site: http://www.rael.org
CO: Raelian Movement
ST: Nevada
SU: REL AVO FOR
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