SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18024, 20 May 1930, Page 8

SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

ATTITUDE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH. NO CONFLICT, SAYS LECTURER. “The scientific world is strewn with the wreckage of exploded theories which pseudo-scientists have arrogantly paraded as established facts,” said Father Bleakley in a lecture on "The Church and Science” last evening. "Between true science and true religion there can be no conflict. Religion deals .with supernatural truths revealed by God, whilst physical science is engaged in probing the secrets of nature of which the same God is the author. But,” the speaker continued, “when the scientist goes outside his own sphere to use mere theory as an attack upon the teachings of religion, then will he And his stoutest opponent in the Catholic Church. The assertion has frequently been made that the Catholic Church has hindered the progress of civilisation, and that it was the necessary opponent of science.” Scientists Quoted. The lecturer then proceeded to quote a list of prominent scientists who were loyal members of the Catholic Church, and to whom, he said, the Church had extended most liberal patronage. Some of those mentioned were Copernicus, the astronomer; Galileo, the Inventor of the telescope; in the development of medical science there is Vesalius; the great father of anatomy, Varolio Eustachio, and Fallopio, Pasteur, the bacteriologist, Mendel, who worked out the laws of heredity; Rontgen, discoverer of X-ray; Madame Curie, who, with her late husband, gave the use of radium to humanity; in the field of electricity one finds Kircher, Volta, Ohm, Galvani, Ampere. “Is it not absurd trifling with language," said the speaker “to talk about a church which can retain scores of men like those named, as driven by necessity to be the absolute enemies of science?”

Dealing with the famous case of Galileo, the lecturer quoted from Whewell, a non-Catholio writer, who stated: “All scientists who have studied the facts state that Galileo trifled with authority to which he professed to submit, and was punished for obstinate contumacy, not for heresy.” Question of Evolution.

“And now finally,” the lecturer went on, “what about this much-discussed question of Evolution? Has not the Catholic Church condemned it? Far from it. Evolution is at most a working hypothesis at the present moment, and the Church does not foolishly dogmatise on theories. The Catholic Church teaches that all life must be traced to God as its ultimate source. Whether the first animate thing that appeared in the world received its life from Him by a direct creative act, or through the Interplay of powers which He had already communicated to matter, that is an open question. Science has proved nothing, and prominent Catholic writers are to be found on both sides. As long as the “missing link” is missing there will be no interference by the Church with these writers- Even Darwinism is now being relegated to the scrapheap of once plausible theories. Bateson, then president of the British Association of Scientists, stated in his address to the society in 1914: “Darwin speaks no more with philos.ophic authority. We read his sceheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarch.’ And Ranke, the biologist, concludes the results' of his researches thus: “The only statement consistent with her dignity that science can make is to say that she knows nothing about the origin of man.” And yet some will already have condemned the Church for its obscurantism in not having embraced the whole theory of Darwin, and altered its doctrines to fit in with it.

Not Opposed to Science.

“Is the Church not wise," the lecturer concluded, “to go slowly and carefully before yielding to the current of so-called science? Can she be said to be opposed to science because she demands scientific proof before acquiescence' Whatever spreads the range of knowledge will always be willingly and even joyfully welcomed by the Church. She will always encourage and promote, as she does in all other branches of knowledge, all study occupied with the investigation of nature."