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Western civilization. It was a gift of the civilization whose cen-
ter was the Catholic Church.
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Chapter Five
The Church and Science
as it just a coincidence that modern science devel-
oped in a largely Catholic milieu, or was there some-
Wthing about Catholicism itself that enabled the
success of science? Even to raise the question is to transgress the
boundaries of fashionable opinion. Yet more and more scholars
have begun to ask it, and their answers may come as a surprise.
This is no small matter. The Catholic Church s alleged hostil-
ity toward science may be her greatest debit in the popular mind.
The one-sided version of the Galileo affair with which most peo-
ple are familiar is very largely to blame for the widespread belief
that the Church has obstructed the advance of scientific inquiry.
But even if the Galileo incident had been every bit as bad as peo-
ple think it was, John Henry Cardinal Newman, the celebrated
nineteenth-century convert from Anglicanism, found it reveal-
ing that this is practically the only example that ever comes to
mind.
The controversy centered around the work of Polish
astronomer Nicholas Copernicus (1473 1543). Some modern
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68 How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
treatments of Copernicus have gone so far as to call him a priest,
but although he was named a canon of the chapter of Frauenburg
in the late 1490s, there is no direct evidence that he ever took
higher orders. One indication that he may have received priestly
ordination comes from the decision of Poland s King Sigismund
in 1537 to name him one of four possible candidates to a vacant
episcopal seat. Whatever his clerical status, Copernicus had come
from a religious family, all of whom belonged to the Third Order
of Saint Dominic, which extended to the laity the opportunity to
1
partake in Dominican spirituality and tradition.
As a scientist, he was a figure of no small renown in ecclesias-
tical circles. He was consulted by the Fifth Lateran Council
(1512 1517) on the subject of calendar reform. In 1531, Coper-
nicus prepared an outline of his astronomy for the benefit of his
friends. It attracted considerable attention; Pope Clement VII
even called on Johann Albert Widmanstadt to deliver a public
lecture at the Vatican on the subject. The pope left very favorably
2
impressed by what he had heard.
Meanwhile, churchmen and academic colleagues alike
implored Copernicus to publish his work for general circulation.
Thus at the urging of friends, including several prelates, Coperni-
cus finally relented and published Six Books on the Revolutions
of the Celestial Orbits, which he dedicated to Pope Paul III, in
1543. Copernicus retained much of the conventional astronomy
of his day, which was overwhelmingly indebted to Aristotle and
above all to Ptolemy (87 150 A.D.), a brilliant Greek astronomer
who posited a geocentric universe. Copernican astronomy shared
with its Greek precursors such features as perfectly spherical
heavenly bodies, circular orbits, and constant planetary speed.
The significant difference that Copernicus introduced was that
he placed the sun, rather than Earth, at the center of the system.
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THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE 69
This heliocentric model posited a moving Earth orbiting the sun
just as the other planets did.
Although viciously attacked by Protestants for its alleged
opposition to Holy Scripture, the Copernican system was subject
to no formal Catholic censure until the Galileo case. Galileo
Galilei (1564 1642), in addition to his work in physics, made
some important astronomical observations with his telescope that
helped to undermine aspects of the Ptolemaic system. He saw
mountains on the moon, thus undermining the ancient certainty
that the heavenly bodies were perfect spheres. He discovered four
moons orbiting Jupiter, demonstrating not only the presence of
celestial phenomena of which Ptolemy and the ancients had been
unaware, but also that a planet moving in its orbit would not leave
its smaller satellites behind. (One of the arguments against the
motion of the Earth had been that the moon would be left behind.)
Galileo s discovery of the phases of Venus was yet another piece of
evidence in favor of the Copernican system.
Initially, Galileo and his work were welcomed and celebrated
by prominent churchmen. In late 1610, Father Christopher
Clavius wrote to tell Galileo that his fellow Jesuit astronomers
had confirmed the discoveries he had made through his tele-
scope. When Galileo went to Rome the following year he was
greeted with enthusiasm by religious and secular figures alike.
He wrote to a friend, I have been received and shown favor by
many illustrious cardinals, prelates, and princes of this city. He
enjoyed a long audience with Pope Paul V, and the Jesuits of the
Roman College held a day of activities in honor of his achieve-
ments. Galileo was delighted: Before an audience of cardinals,
scholars, and secular leaders, students of Father Christopher
Grienberger and Father Clavius spoke about the great
astronomer s discoveries.
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70 How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
These were scholars of considerable distinction. Father Grien-
berger, who personally verified Galileo s discovery of Jupiter s
moons, was an accomplished astronomer who had invented the
equatorial mount, which rotated a telescope about an axis paral-
lel to Earth s. He also contributed to the development of the
3
refracting telescope in use today.
Father Clavius, one of the great mathematicians of his day, had
headed the commission that yielded the Gregorian calendar
(which went into effect in 1582), which resolved the inaccuracies
that had plagued the old Julian calendar. His calculations regard-
ing the length of the solar year and the number of days necessary
to keep the calendar in line with the solar year ninety-seven leap
days every four hundred years, he explained were so precise that
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