So are you saying that the Church was an eager promoter of and participant in science from the earliest days up to and including the present? Methinks not. The Church has repeatedly come around to a new perspective only after grievous errors, damaged lives and centuries of time have elapsed.

As for those individuals you cite as examples, I don’t know a single one of them. That’s not my ignorance either. They are minor historical figures at best.

If you want credibility in such an argument, show how the Church stood foresquare behind Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Brahe, Darwin and others, even in the face of fierce criticism from others (say, the relevant King or Queen of the day). Oh wait, they didn’t. You’re trying to use rare exceptions to make the case that the Church was on the side of the Angels of Knowledge, metaphorically speaking. Your argument does not fly.

His works were only withdrawn when Galileo proceeded to teach Copernican theory as truth in the absence of any real evidence – motion of the Earth was not totally proven until Foucault’s pendulum, and confirmation of Stellar Parallax some 200 years later. Galileo was also temperamental and hurt the Pope’s ego by putting the his words in to the mouth of ‘the dummy’ in his work ‘Dialogs’.

Funny how Fr Roger Boscovich (note the Fr) used Copernican theory in his research and was never censured.

Besides why didn’t you mention the flak Copernicus received from the astronomers of the day, Martin Luther and John Calvin?

C’mon folks get it right and stop this nonsense about the Church was anti-science, or a bunch of idiots – read your history starting with Pierre Duhem, Stanley L Jaki, James Hannam and Thomas E Woods.

And there was me thinking Discover Magazine knew how to undertake research!

Science is the study of reality, grounded in evidence. Religious people are not excluded, but some (too many) fall for the trap of denying reality to make room for their religion – which is how religion gets the anti-science reputation.

What disturbs me (but does not surprise me) is the general assumption held by many in popular culture–and, so, the media–that the Church is anti-science. The biased reporting on the re-interment of Copernicus shows just this.

One could write volumes on this subject–and show the Church’s appreciation and use of thought worlds that exist outside of faith–but such a discussion would assume that those who dislike the Church really want to hear a view that contradicts their own presuppositions. In being so closed minded they become the personification of the myths that they seek to impose about others.

I believe it was Georges Lemaitrie, a catholic priest and physicist, who first corrected Einstein on his theory of a static universe with his theories on an ever expanding one originating from an initial point [the big bang]. When explained, it is reported that Einstein responded, “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.”

So the answer to your question is “at least once”.

The Magisterium should regret why it should even exist at all as an institution. There is no logical basis why it should (even from a scriptural perspective) and why society should even regard it as an entity at all. The harm it has done to society since history invalidates all the good we could come up now why we should respect it any manner whatsoever.