Catholic Churchmen in Science - Sketches of the Lives of Catholic Ecclesiastics Who Were Among the Great Founders in Science (Paperback)

This work begins with the laboratories in the Vatican and the Papal Scientsts. Then are considered Roger Bacon, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Abbe Spallanzani, Abbe Breuil and Reverend Hugo Obermaier. Abbe Spallanzani is called the clerical precursor of Pasteur. Let us consider this on the attitude of the Catholic Church towards science: "It might be thought by many, because of an erroneous tradition in the matter, that surely in this department there would be no likelihood of the Popes having a laboratory; but, then, those who think that the Galileo case demonstrates the utter opposition of the Popes to science would be quite sure that there could have been no astronomical observatory at the Vatican, in spite of the fact that Gregory XIII's observatory just mentioned was established some fifty years before the condemnation of Galileo." And of Bacon: "It is no wonder that when a reaction came in the Franciscan Order, Bacon was put in enforced retirement. It is doubtful whether anything more than this can be said of what has been called his "imprisonment," and that some people have been inclined to think of as twenty or thirty years of confinement to a dungeon. It is like Galileo's imprisonment. The good Florentine mathematician and astronomer was never in prison for an hour. He was confined to the home of a Cardinal friend, but that was one of the palaces of Rome where any of us would be quite willing to be entertained while at the Papal Capital. The main portion of Galileo's punishment, poor fellow was to say the Seven Penitential Psalms every day for three years. He was placed in charge of a Jesuit friend in his own house, and later his guardian, that is, his "jailor," to use the word of Protestant controversy, - selected for him by the Roman authorities, - was his own son."