Like Marini, L'Epinois was devoted to the Church; but, unlike Marini, he could not lie.

Having obtained access in 1867 to the Galileo documents at the Vatican, he published several of the most important, without suppression or pious-fraudulent manipulation.

This made all the intrenchments based upon Marini's statements untenable.

Another retreat had to be made.
And now came the most desperate effort of all.

The apologetic army, reviving an idea which the popes and the Church had spurned for centuries, declared that the popes AS POPES had never condemned the doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo; that they had condemned them as men simply; that therefore the Church had never been committed to them; that the condemnation was made by the cardinals of the inquisition and index; and that the Pope had evidently been restrained by interposition of Providence from signing their condemnation.