The Vatican and SCIENCE?!

"Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, his maker: You question me about my children, or prescribe the work of my hands for me!

"It was I who made the earth and created mankind upon it; It was my hands that stretched out the heavens; I gave the order to all their host."
(Isaiah 45:11-12)

We've learned quite a bit about "the heavens" in the 27 centuries that rolled by since Isaiah's time: much of that in the last hundred years or so.

I don't have to be interested in this wonder-filled universe to be a Catholic. But a lively interest in God's creation doesn't get in the way of my faith, either.

The Catholic Church was getting involved with what 'serious thinkers' were discussing long before we knew about stem cells.

For example, there was a lively debate a bit over seven centuries ago about whether we're standing on the only world, or if there could be others. Predictably, some folks didn't like the newfangled ideas.

Eventually the Church had to remind us that personal preference and Aristotle don't outrank God. Ever since, Catholics haven't been allowed to say there can't be other worlds. And that's another topic. (January 29, 2012)

In 1603, the Accademia dei Lincei was the first academy in the world that studied science: and nothing else. That academy didn't last long, but Pope Pius IX re-founded it as the Pontifical Academy of the New Lynxes in 1847. Pope Pius XI restarted it in 1936, and changed the name to what we've got now.

And that's yet another topic:

• "History"
  Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Honest Research and God

The Church gets along fine with honest research. I've been over this before:

"...the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God..."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 159)

"...The beauty of creation reflects the infinite beauty of the Creator and ought to inspire the respect and submission of man's intellect and will."
(Catechism, 341)

"...Science and technology are ordered to man, from whom they take their origin and development; hence they find in the person and in his moral values both evidence of their purpose and awareness of their limits."
(Catechism, 2293)

The down side, if you can call it that, is that the Church also insists that people pay attention to ethics: even if they're important people like doctors and scientists.

(Mostly from "Stem Cell Research, Mapping Mercury, and Alpha Centauri's Cool Layer " (March 8, 2013))

Related posts:

• "Vast and Ancient"
  (February 27, 2013)
• "Ethics and Asteroids"
  (February 20, 2013)
• " '...The Man With the X-Ray Eyes,' the Tuskegee Experiment, and Seeking God"
  (February 10, 2013)
• "Reason, Evidence, and Searching for Truth"
  (February 3, 2013)
• "News, Good and Otherwise: and Billions of Worlds"
  (January 11, 2013)
  Particularly
  • Asteroid 99942 Apophis Missed Us
  • Planets Like Earth: Billions of Them