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The Catholic Church as a Strategic and Careful Patron of Science
The relationship between the Catholic church and science has been largely supportive in spite of the myth of conflict stemming from discomfort with divergence from a Biblical geocentric model of cosmology to a heliocentric one. The church and its Jesuit missionaries not only studied subjects such as astronomy, physics and math, they exchanged information with others such as the Chinese across the world. In 1616, the Qualifiers of the Holy Office formally disavowed heliocentric theory. However, when they needed assistance with a problematic Ecclesiastical calendar, they solicited the assistance of astronomers who inadvertently proved the validity of it. Two developments made the confirmation possible: the more accurate measurements of the sun and the moon, and the astronomical community's understanding of how to use language that was vague enough to avoid direct conflict with church doctrine. Words in Biblical scripture left some room for interpretation and when there were conflicts between the physical and the scriptural, both the church and the scientists engaged in exercises of hermeneutical accommodation.

Ecclesiastical Calendaring Challenges and a Growing Sense of Urgency
One of the primary reasons that the church was so supportive of astronomical research was that the church needed astronomers to assist in resolving issues with the calendar--specifically in establishing a date for Easter. In 325 A.D., the Catholic theologians comprising the Council of Nicaea, set the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox where the vernal equinox was the point of equal daylight and darkness. The challenge in using astronomical observations for a religious celebration spanning great distances across the globe was that date was inconsistent and subject to errors in accuracy of observations. Beyond the challenge of Easter was the fact that the calendar was used for business that included payment schedules, etc. thus creating economic consequences every time days were removed for realignment purposes. By the sixth century, there was papal pressure to create a system for designating the date of Easter that was both accurate and consistent across the world. The church recognized that there had been a drift and that the date of Easter no longer seemed to align with heaven which created an urgent need to understand the movement of the sun and earth so that the calendar conflicts could be resolved. After reviewing the data from Aristotle to Ptolemy, they recognized that the problem centered on the period between successive Spring equinoxes. In 1514, Pope Leo X commissioned Dutch astronomer Paul of Middleburg to identify a resolution. Paul favored resetting the date of the vernal equinox to March 10 rather than eliminating days to correct the drift but the changes were not made. Copernicus, a contemporary of Paul, attributed the failure to inaccuracies in measurements of the sun and moon and he focused his attention on collecting more accurate data.

Commissioning Astronomical Assistance to Fix the Calendar
Accurate data about the vernal equinox required a large, dark space like a cathedral to measure a meridian line. A hole was cut into the roof of a cathedral and using a rod or line in the floor, they measured the time it took for a noon time image of the sun to return to the same place. The accuracy depended on the quality of the laboratory set up for observation, including the location of the hole, the level of the floors and line placement. Cosimo I D’Medici a patron of the arts and supporter of the church, enlisted Egnatio Danti, a Dominican artist, for help with the calendar. Danti found the perfect location for his meridian in the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna. Structural issues led to inaccuracy of Danti’s meridian. Decades later, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, redid the meridian in the same basilica. His work resolved the apparent conflicts between Ptolemy’s solar theory and Kepler’s “bisection of eccentricity” using the diameter of the sun’s image as an inverse substitute for the sun’s distance from the earth. His precise work ended up proving the validity of Copernican theory condemned by the church.

Jesuit Education-Broad global historical support for Education in Science and Math
The Jesuits created an international system of education in which math and astronomy were important subjects. In the sixteenth century, the Jesuits’ commitment to education was extensive and included seventy-four colleges across the world including the Coleggio Romano under the direction of noted mathematician and astronomer Christoph Clavius.

Saving the Phenomena and Hermeneutical Accommodation
Astronomers from Ptolemy to Cassini recognized potential conflicts between their observations and cosmology and it was often a challenge to cultivate a position in which science and scripture could both be true. Ptolemy saw the conflict between his model and the movement of planets. By interpreting the word orbit in both a geometric sense and in a way that could apply to the sun or the earth, Catholic scientists like Cassini could create enough distance from Galileo's theory to operate without condemnation from the church. Galileo himself felt that conflict between scripture and science could be resolved through hermeneutical accommodation. He believed that there could essentially be harmony between science or nature and scripture of one understood how to interpret scripture. Galileo was of the opinion that since God is responsible for every aspect of our world, including the sensory experiences that are an integral part of scientific observation, then if what we see differs from scripture, we should conclude that the observations are correct. Galileo references Cardinal Baronius who believed that the Bible is not meant to explain heaven or God's creation as much as it is meant to guide people's actions.

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