Estesbob said:
“I havent said a word about the science as it has no bearing on the Teachings of the Church.”
Oh, but science *does *have a bearing on the Teachings of the Church. Church history is chocked full of misguided Popes who have turned a blind eye to science in order to satisfy what the Church defined as the “meaning of scripture.” One of the most famous blurbs was the case of
Copernicus and Galileo:
“In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church’s
Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending
De revolutionibus until it could be “corrected,” on the grounds that the supposedly Pythagorean doctrine that the Earth moves and the Sun doesn’t was “false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture.” The same decree also prohibited any work that defended the mobility of the Earth or the immobility of the Sun, or that attempted to reconcile these assertions with Scripture. On the orders of Pope Paul V, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine gave Galileo prior notice that the decree was about to be issued, and warned him that he could not “hold or defend” the Copernican doctrine. The corrections to De revolutionibus, which omitted or altered nine sentences, were issued four years later, in 1620. In 1633 Galileo Galilei was convicted of grave suspicion of heresy for “following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture,” and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. Galileo had gotten off lightly. Another Copernican, Giordano Bruno, had been prosecuted in Rome by the same Cardinal Bellarmine and, on 17 February 1600, burned at the stake as a heretic, primarily for his theologic views and not necessarily his scientific ones. The Catholic Church’s 1758
Index of Prohibited Books omitted the general prohibition of works defending heliocentrism, but retained the specific prohibitions of the original uncensored versions of
De revolutionibus and Galileo’s
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Those prohibitions were finally dropped from the 1835 Index.”
There has not been a Pope in the past 150 years who has believed that the universe revolves around Earth, much less one who has seen fit to sanction those who prescribe to that fact, yet there was a time when it was considered heresy. Science indeed changed the Teachings of the Church.
More recently, in 2004, in the Church document
Communion and Stewardship, for the first time the Church accepted the reality of biological evolution. Science indeed changed the Teachings of the Church…
again.
The
Catechism itself says: “Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of the faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are” (CCC 159). The Catholic Church has no fear of science or scientific discovery.”
The Church seems to go out of its way to say there is no conflict between itself and science, yet seems to choose which science to validate. The Teachings have changed numerous times when the science seemed to serve the Church’s best interest. The Church does not hold my key to heaven, the teachings of Christ and my faith in Him does. There is no doubt the Church will change its position on transsexuality. The issue is the damage that will be done to humankind before it does so.
