Roman Catholicism and Modern Science

In the popular imagination, historical relations between the Roman Catholic Church and modern science are best epitomized in the case of Galileo Galilei. Condemned in 1616 for advancing the theory of a moving earth and a stationary sun, he was only fully exonerated in 1992. Yet apart from relatively few and specialized studies, there have been no extensive historical treatments of Catholic attitudes toward science after Galileo. This is the first general history of the reactions of the RCC to developments in the natural sciences from about 1800 to the dawn of the twenty-first century. While Galileo's heliocentric universe had challenged the "inerrancy" of the Bible, Darwin's theories challenged the divine origin of the universe and the direct and immediate creation of the human soul. Through O'Leary's cast of characters - popes from Pius IX to John Paul II, polemicists like Thomas Henry Huxley and Irish physicist John Tyndall, and Catholic apologists and scientists like Sir George Jackson Mivart - we get a clear picture of the back and forth volleys between representatives of the scientific and religious establishments. Besides evolution, a wide range of other issues receives attention, including agnosticism, biblical criticism, the philosophy and professionalization of science, the nature of Catholic dogma vis-a-vis science and intellectual freedom vis-a-vis faith and ecclesiastical authority. While many of these issues achieved a certain resolution in the years before and after the Second Vatican Council, toward the end of the 20th century new issues facing the church and global society exploded with new urgency, with environmental concerns, on the one hand, and portentous developments in the biological sciences, on the other: contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilization, gene therapy, experimentation on embryos, organ transplantation, withdrawal of medical treatment, diagnosis of death and euthanasia. O'Leary explains the intricacies all of these issues clearly and fairly, though their ultimate resolution may take decades to achieve.