lesiastical opposition
to the study of chemistry. Indeed, many writers have not hesitated to
say that there was a bull, or at least a decree, issued by one or more
of the popes forbidding the study of chemistry. This, is not only not
true, but the very pope who is said to have issued the decree, John
XXII, was himself an ardent student of the medical sciences. We still
possess several books from him on these subjects, and his decree was
meant only to suppress pseudo-science, which, as always, was
exploiting the people for its own ends. The fact that a century later
the foundation of modern chemical pharmacology was laid by a
Benedictine monk, Basil Valentine, shows how unfounded is the idea
that the papal decree actually hampered in any way the development of
chemical investigation or the advance of chemical science.

Owing to the Galileo controversy, astronomy is ordinarily supposed to
have been another of the sciences to which it was extremely indiscreet
at least, not to say dangerous, for a clergyman to devote himself. The
great founder of modern astronomy, however, Copernicus, was not only a
clergyman, but one indeed so faithful and ardent that it is said to
have been owing to his efforts that the diocese in which he lived did
not go over to Lutheranism during his lifetime, as did most of the
other dioceses in that part of Germany. The fact that Copernicus's
book was involved in the Galileo trial has rendered his {9} position
still further misunderstood, but the matter is fully cleared up in the
subsequent sketch of his life. As a matter of fact, it is in astronomy
particularly that clergymen have always been in the forefront of
advance; and it must not be forgotten that it was the Catholic Church
that secured the scientific data necessary for the correction of the
Julian Calendar, and that it was a pope who proclaimed the
advisability of the correction to the world. Down to our own day there
have always been very prominent clergymen astronomers. One of the best
known names in the history of the astronomy of the nineteenth century
is that of Father Piazzi, to whom we owe the discovery of the first of
the asteroids. Other well-known names, such as Father Secchi, who was
the head of the papal observatory at Rome, and Father Perry, the
English Jesuit, might well be mentioned. The papal observatory at Rome
has for centuries been doing some of the best work in astronomy
accomplished anywhere, although it has always been