The Church and Science

It seems that all pronouncements by Pope Francis which defy the secular worlds preconceived notions about the Church are being hailed as revolutionary breakthroughs, even if they merely restate long-held positions.

It is important to remind society, and the faithful, that the Church embraces science, that evolution is compatible with the faith, even as some fundamentalist Christians disagree.

Catholics, and all Christians, should know that the Big Bang theory does not contradict the role of a divine creator, but actually required it.

God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life, as Pope Francis put it.Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.

In this way Christians are able to reconcile God, whom we meet in the act of faith, with the revelations of empirical scientific inquest. Science seeks to answer what and how; theology and philosophy seek to answer why.

Pope Francis said nothing new, of course. Pope Pius XII declared in his 1950 encyclical Humani Generis that there was no conflict between evolution and Catholic doctrine, confirmed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

This seems to have bypassed the modern media and those whose limited views of the Churchs relationship with science are prejudiced by half-remembered stories about the Galileo affair and the misleading propaganda of atheist polemic.

And so Pope Francis innocuous remarks were presented as a significant shift in the Church, which supposedly has a record of resistance to scientific inquest.

The very thought of Catholic hostility to science is preposterous. Already in 1912, the Catholic Encyclopedia noted that the conflicts between science and the Church are not real.

This sober observation followed several decades during which some Catholic leaders made known their opposition to the ideas of evolution, especially as proposed by Charles Darwin. That resistance tended to relate not to scientific insight, however, but to the use of the understanding of humanity’s evolution to deny God.

Indeed, the initial proposition of the theory of evolution emerged from a devout, life-long Catholic, the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). And the Big Bang theory was the work of a Catholic priest, Belgian Father Georges Lemaitre(1894-1966).

Many scientific breakthroughs were achieved by Catholic clerics and religious over the centuries, usually supported by the Church.

In the 13th century, English Franciscan friars Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, English Bishops Robert Grosseteste and John Peckham, and German Dominican Bishop Albert of Cologne were early advocates of the scientific method.

Polish Father Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) pioneered the theory of heliocentrism that the sun, not the earth, is at the centre of our universe.

Jesuit Father Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) was a pioneer in astronomy, as were his fellow Jesuits, Frs Daniello Bartoli (1608-85) and Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618-63).

German Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher (1602-80) was a pioneer in bacteriology.

Danish Bishop Nicolas Steno (1638-86) was a pioneer in anatomical research.

Italian Jesuit Father Francesco Lana de Terzi (1631-87) is known as the father of aeronautics.

German Augustinian Friar Gregor Mendel (1822-84) was a pioneer of genetics.

Jesuit Father Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711-87), from modern-day Croatia, was an all-round scientist of significant import, especially in the fields of astronomy and what would become atomic theory.

The Catholic Church also revised the Julian calendar, a great scientific accomplishment.

These are just a few examples of the vast Catholic clerical engagement in the sciences, leaving aside the contributions by lay Catholics such as Ren Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Antoine Lavoisier, Louis Pasteur or Louis Braille.

Much of scientific advance has been made possible, and certainly not obstructed, by Catholicism.