How does the Catholic Church feel about science today?

You are undoubtedly aware that some people believe that there is conflict between science and religion (though the authors of this book disagree, believing that both are compatible), and the fame of the “Galileo affair” (as it is often called) makes many people assume that there would be particular conflict within the Catholic Church. That is not the case, however. If anything, the Galileo Affair seems to have led the Church to take a more generous attitude toward science. Throughout the centuries since Galileo, the Catholic Church has sponsored significant scientific research, and many major discoveries have been made by Catholic scientists. For example, the idea that we live in a universe that began in a Big Bang was first proposed by a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaître (1894–1966). (Lemaître is also jointly credited with Edwin Hubble for discovering that we live in an expanding universe.) Catholic scientists continue to do groundbreaking research today, and official Church teachings are compatible not only with Earth’s planetary status but also with the theories of evolution and of the Big Bang.