The Current Evolution of Ancient Religious Institutions

[Silver]

I wonder if that one rule should be made clearly important in the welcome message received upon joining.

[arewethereyet]

I wonder if that one rule should be made clearly important in the welcome message received upon joining.

Do you suppose someone is going to clearly recall their welcome message from eight years ago?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well shit Tim, you appear to know so little about the subject that I wonder whether you ought to be reading or writing?

You cant expect anyone to take you seriously if you want to litigate such basic facts of mere reality. Not here or anywhere else, really. Even the fundies try to come up with some reason they fucked the pooch. You seem content to pretend it's never happened? Let's imagine a world where your spine and your dignity were both intact, shall we? Where you don't pretend to draw an absolute blank at the notion of the church as a gatekeeping force in western history, because you're doing real history. Say you spent an hour explaining to silly atheists that the church didn't burn people for one absurd reason, but for another absurd reason, what do you think you will have accomplished. Who do you think you will have educated? What argument, do you imagine, you'll have won?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Before Columbus, the idea in Europe was that you would fall from the edge of the world if you went too far on the map.

Many people knew well before Columbus that the Earth was spherical. The sailors mentioned above were on group, but even Eratosthenes 1500 years before then not only understood the sphericity of the Earth, he computed its diameter to within about 2,500 miles.

Pretty cool using two sticks and a little walking.

The educated and the journeymen knew the world was round. Peasants? Nah, they weren't educated or experienced. But it wasn't a secret, nor was it unknown at all.

[Thumpalumpacus]

So they didn't need to be educated. If you say so. Great educator.

No, most people didn't need education. In pre-modern societies, most people had no need for literacy. So it wasn't that "the Church" somehow kept them from being educated. They had no need of it any more than their Greek or Roman Era ancestors did. The need for widespread literacy rose much later. Understand?

It should be noted that kings and princes used divine right to justify their rule over peasants. It just so happens that those same kings and princes had sway in who could and could not be educated beyond, say, knowing when to plant crops. That the Catholic Church supported many of these European nobles in their practice of fiefdom does indeed say something about the influence of Christianity on Western civilization, and not all to the good.

Put shortly, who decided who needed education or not? Kings and princes supported by religious authorities, in a large part. It should also be noted that the Church had a fairly hostile attitude to scientific learning in general, meaning to me that even it isn't directly culpable in misunderstanding geosphericity or heliocentricity, it's still guilty in part of retarding learning. That comes with punishing scientists for learning.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Better educated work forces raise everybody up. Keeping them ignorant was to keep them from thinking.

[TimOneill]

It should be noted that kings and princes used divine right to justify their rule over peasants. It just so happens that those same kings and princes had sway in who could and could not be educated beyond, say, knowing when to plant crops.

They did? Can you point me to examples of evidence these kings limited who could be educated?

Put shortly, who decided who needed education or not? Kings and princes supported by religious authorities, in a large part.

See above.

It should also be noted that the Church had a fairly hostile attitude to scientific learning in general, meaning to me that even it isn't directly culpable in misunderstanding geosphericity or heliocentricity, it's still guilty in part of retarding learning.

Again, can you give us evidence of this “hostility”?

That comes with punishing scientists for learning.

Can you give any examples of scientists “punished for learning”?

[TimOneill]

Better educated work forces raise everybody up. Keeping them ignorant was to keep them from thinking.

People keep asserting that they were “kept ignorant” but keep failing to provide evidence this was some active policy by … anyone. Can you provide some?

[Belacqua]

It should also be noted that the Church had a fairly hostile attitude to scientific learning in general, meaning to me that even it isn't directly culpable in misunderstanding geosphericity or heliocentricity, it's still guilty in part of retarding learning. That comes with punishing scientists for learning.

Here is a list of one or two brave souls who managed to escape this horrible oppression:

---

List of Catholic clergy scientists





A

• José de Acosta (1539–1600) – Jesuit missionary and naturalist who wrote one of the first detailed and realistic descriptions of the new world[5]
  
• François d'Aguilon (1567–1617) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician, architect, and physicist, who worked on optics
  
• Lorenzo Albacete (1941–2014) – priest, physicist, and theologian
  
• Albert of Castile (c. 1460 – 1522) – Dominican priest and historian
  
• Albert of Saxony (philosopher) (c. 1320 – 1390) – German bishop known for his contributions to logic and physics; with Buridan he helped develop the theory that was a precursor to the modern theory of inertia[6]
  
• Albertus Magnus (c. 1206 – 1280) – Dominican friar and Bishop of Regensburg who has been described as "one of the most famous precursors of modern science in the High Middle Ages."[7] Patron saint of natural sciences; Works in physics, logic, metaphysics, biology, and psychology.
  
• Giulio Alenio (1582–1649) – Jesuit theologian, astronomer and mathematician; was sent to the Far East as a missionary and adopted a Chinese name and customs; wrote 25 books, including a cosmography and a Life of Jesus in Chinese.
  
• José María Algué (1856–1930) – priest and meteorologist who invented the barocyclonometer[8]
  
• José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799) – priest, scientist, historian, cartographer, and meteorologist who wrote more than thirty treatises on a variety of scientific subjects
  
• Bartholomeus Amicus (1562–1649) – Jesuit who wrote about include Aristotelian philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and the concept of vacuum and its relationship with God
  
• Stefano degli Angeli (1623–1697) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit), philosopher and mathematician, known for his work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus
  
• Pierre Ango (1640–1694) – Jesuit scientist who published a book on optics
  
• Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli (1817–1899) – priest and botanist who was one of the first to introduce microphotography into the study of biology[9]
  
• Giovanni Antonelli (1818–1872) – priest and astronomer who served as director of the Ximenian Observatory of Florence
  
• Nicolò Arrighetti (1709–1767) – Jesuit who wrote treatises on light, heat, and electricity
  
• Mariano Artigas (1938–2006) – Spanish physicist, philosopher and theologian
  
• Giuseppe Asclepi (1706–1776) – Jesuit astronomer and physician who served as director of the Collegio Romano observatory; the lunar crater Asclepi is named after him
  
• Nicanor Austriaco – Dominican microbiologist, associate professor of biology and professor of theology at Providence College as well as chief researcher at the Austriaco Laboratory
  

B

• Roger Bacon (c. 1214 – 1294) – Franciscan friar who made significant contributions to mathematics and optics and has been described as a forerunner of modern scientific method[10]
  
• Bernardino Baldi (1533–1617) – abbot, mathematician, and writer
  
• Eugenio Barsanti (1821–1864) – Piarist, possible inventor of the internal combustion engine[11]
  
• Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685) – Bartoli and fellow Jesuit astronomer Niccolò Zucchi are credited as probably having been the first to see the equatorial belts on the planet Jupiter[12][13]
  
• Joseph Bayma (1816–1892) – Jesuit known for work in stereochemistry and mathematics
  
• Giovanni Battista Beccaria (1716–1781) – Piarist, physicist, teacher of Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, correspondent of Benjamin Franklin
  
• Giacopo Belgrado (1704–1789) – Jesuit professor of mathematics and physics and court mathematician who did experimental work in electricity
  
• Michel Benoist (1715–1774) – missionary to China and scientist
  
• Mario Bettinus (1582–1657) – Jesuit philosopher, mathematician and astronomer; lunar crater Bettinus named after him
  
• Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named
  
• Jacques de Billy (1602–1679) – Jesuit who has produced a number of results in number theory which have been named after him; published several astronomical tables; the crater Billy on the Moon is named after him
  
• Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) – Cistercian botanist who contributed to the fields of medicine and toxicology
  
• Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) – priest, mathematician, and logician whose other interests included metaphysics, ideas, sensation, and truth
  
• Anselmus de Boodt (1550–1632) – canon who was one of the founders of mineralogy
  
• Theodoric Borgognoni (1205–1298) – Dominican friar, Bishop of Cervia, and medieval Surgeon who made important contributions to antiseptic practice and anaesthetics
  
• Thomas Borgmeier (1892–1975) – German-born priest and entomologist who worked in Brazil
  
• Christopher Borrus (1583–1632) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomy who made observations on the magnetic variation of the compass
  
• Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) – Croatian Jesuit polymath known for his contributions to modern atomic theory and astronomy and for devising perhaps the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position[14]
  
• Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) – Jesuit sinologist and cartographer who did his work in China
  
• Michał Boym (c. 1612 – 1659) – Jesuit who was one of the first westerners to travel within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous works on Asian fauna, flora and geography
  
• Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 1349) – Archbishop of Canterbury and mathematician who helped develop the mean speed theorem; one of the Oxford Calculators
  
• Martin Stanislaus Brennan (1845–1927) – priest and astronomer who wrote several books about science
  
• Henri Breuil (1877–1961) – priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist
  
• Jan Brożek (1585–1652) – Polish canon, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and physician; the most prominent Polish mathematician of the 17th century
  
• Pádraig de Brún (1889–1960) – Irish priest, mathematician, poet, and classical scholar; served as Professor of Mathematics at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, President of University College Galway, and Chairman of the Council of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
  
• Louis-Ovide Brunet (1826–1876) – priest, one of the founding fathers of Canadian botany
  
• Ismaël Bullialdus (1605–1694) – priest, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society; the Bullialdus crater is named in his honor
  
• Jean Buridan (c. 1300 – after 1358) – priest who formulated early ideas of momentum and inertial motion and sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe
  
• Tom Burke (1923-2008) - Irish Carmelite priest, physicist and school teacher, and co-founder of the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition
  
• Roberto Busa (1913–2011) – Jesuit, wrote a lemmatization of the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Index Thomisticus) which was later digitalized by IBM
  

C

• Niccolò Cabeo (1586–1650) – Jesuit mathematician; the crater Cabeus is named in his honor
  
• Nicholas Callan (1799–1846) – priest and Irish scientist best known for his work on the induction coil
  
• Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi (1764–1852) – archdeacon, mathematician, political economist and inventor of the tonograph
  
• John Cantius (1390–1473) – priest and Buridanist mathematical physicist who further developed the theory of impetus
  
• Jean Baptiste Carnoy (1836–1899) – priest, has been called the founder of the science of cytology[15]
  
• Giovanni di Casali (died c. 1375) – Franciscan friar who provided a graphical analysis of the motion of accelerated bodies
  
• Paolo Casati (1617–1707) – Jesuit mathematician who wrote on astronomy, meteorology, and vacuums; the crater Casatus on the Moon is named after him; published Terra machinis mota (1658), a dialogue between Galileo, Paul Guldin and father Marin Mersenne on cosmology, geography, astronomy and geodesy, giving a positive image of Galileo 25 years after his conviction.
  
• Giovanni Caselli (1815–1891) – priest who developed the pantelegraph, a forerunner of the fax machine
  
• Laurent Cassegrain (1629–1693) – priest who was the probable namesake of the Cassegrain telescope; the crater Cassegrain on the Moon is named after him
  
• Louis Bertrand Castel (1688–1757) – French Jesuit physicist who worked on gravity and optics in a Cartesian context
  
• Benedetto Castelli (1578–1643) – Benedictine mathematician; long-time friend and supporter of Galileo Galilei, who was his teacher; wrote an important work on fluids in motion
  
• Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598–1647) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit) known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy; his principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus; the lunar crater Cavalerius is named in his honor
  
• Antonio José Cavanilles (1745–1804) – priest and leading Spanish taxonomic botanist of the 18th century
  
• Francesco Cetti (1726–1778) – Jesuit zoologist and mathematician
  
• Tommaso Ceva (1648–1737) – Jesuit mathematician, poet, and professor who wrote treatises on geometry, gravity, and arithmetic
  
• Christopher Clavius (1538–1612) – German mathematician and astronomer, most noted in connection with the Gregorian calendar, his arithmetic books were used by many mathematicians including Leibniz and Descartes
  
• Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux (1691–1779) – Jesuit ethnologist and philologer who composed the first treatise of Indology.
  
• Guy Consolmagno (1952–) – Jesuit astronomer and planetary scientist, serving as Director of the Vatican Observatory
  
• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) – Renaissance astronomer and canon famous for his heliocentric cosmology that set in motion the Copernican Revolution
  
• Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718) – Franciscan cosmographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, and globe-maker
  
• Bonaventura Corti (1729–1813) – Italian biologist and physicist who made microscopic observations on Tremels, rotifers and seaweeds
  
• George Coyne (1933–2020) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory whose research interests have been in polarimetric studies of various subjects, including Seyfert galaxies
  
• James Cullen (mathematician) (1867–1933) – Jesuit mathematician who published what is now known as Cullen numbers in number theory
  
• James Curley (astronomer) (1796–1889) – Jesuit, first director of Georgetown Observatory and determined the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C.
  
• Albert Curtz (1600–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who expanded on the works of Tycho Brahe and contributed to early understanding of the moon; the crater Curtius on the Moon is named after him
  
• Johann Baptist Cysat (1587–1657) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, after whom the lunar crater Cysatus is named; published the first printed European book concerning Japan; one of the first to make use of the newly developed telescope; did important research on comets and the Orion nebula
  
• Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche (1722–1769) – priest and astronomer best known for his observations of the transits of Venus
  

D

• Ignazio Danti (1536–1586) – Dominican mathematician, astronomer, cosmographer, and cartographer
  
• Armand David (1826–1900) – Lazarist priest, zoologist, and botanist who did important work in these fields in China
  
• Francesco Denza (1834–1894) – Barnabite meteorologist, astronomer, and director of Vatican Observatory
  
• Václav Prokop Diviš (1698–1765) – Czech priest who studied electrical phenomenons and constructed, among other inventions, the first electrified musical instrument in history
  
• Johann Dzierzon (1811–1906) – priest and pioneering apiarist who discovered the phenomenon of parthenogenesis among bees, and designed the first successful movable-frame beehive; has been described as the "father of modern apiculture"
  

F

• Francesco Faà di Bruno (c. 1825–1888) – priest and mathematician beatified by Pope John Paul II
  
• Honoré Fabri (1607–1688) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist
  
• Jean-Charles de la Faille (1597–1652) – Jesuit mathematician who determined the center of gravity of the sector of a circle for the first time
  
• Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) – canon and one of the most important anatomists and physicians of the sixteenth century; the Fallopian tubes, which extend from the uterus to the ovaries, are named for him
  
• Gyula Fényi (1845–1927) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Haynald Observatory; noted for his observations of the sun; the crater Fényi on the Moon is named after him
  
• Louis Feuillée (1660–1732) – Minim explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist
  
• Kevin T. FitzGerald (1955–) – American molecular biologist and holds the Dr. David Lauler chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics at Georgetown University
  
• Placidus Fixlmillner (1721–1791) – Benedictine priest and one of the first astronomers to compute the orbit of Uranus
  
• Paolo Frisi (1728–1784) – priest, mathematician, and astronomer who did significant work in hydraulics
  
• Paolo Antonio Foscarini (c. 1565-1616) - Carmelite father and scientist who wrote about liberal arts, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics.
  
• José Gabriel Funes (1963–) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory
  
• Lorenzo Fazzini [it] (1787–1837) – priest and physicist born in Vieste and working in Naples
  

G

• Joseph Galien (1699 – c. 1762) – Dominican professor who wrote on aeronautics, hailstorms, and airships
  
• Jean Gallois (1632–1707) – French scholar, abbot, and member of Académie des Sciences
  
• Leonardo Garzoni (1543–1592) – Jesuit natural philosopher; author of the first known example of a modern treatment of magnetic phenomena
  
• Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) – French priest, astronomer, and mathematician who published the first data on the transit of Mercury; best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity
  
• Antoine Gaubil (1689–1759) – French astronomer who was the director general of the College of Interpreters at the court of China between 1741 and 1759 and centralized information provided by the Jesuit observatories throughout the world
  
• Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) – Franciscan physician and psychologist; founded Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan
  
• Niccolò Gianpriamo (1686–1759) – Italian Jesuit, missionary and astronomer
  
• Giuseppe Maria Giovene (1753–1837) – Italian archpriest, naturalist, meteorologist, agronomist and entomologist
  
• Johannes von Gmunden (c. 1380 – 1442) – canon, mathematician, and astronomer who compiled astronomical tables; Asteroid 15955 Johannesgmunden named in his honor
  
• Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700) – priest, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer; drew the first map of all of New Spain
  
• Gilles-François de Gottignies (1630–1689) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer.
  
• Andrew Gordon (1712–1751) – Benedictine monk, priest, physicist, and inventor who made the first electric motor
  
• Giovanni Antonio Grassi (1775–1849) – Jesuit astronomer who calculated the longitude of Washington, D.C.
  
• Orazio Grassi (1583–1654) – Jesuit mathematician, astronomer and architect; engaged in controversy with Galileo on the subject of comets
  
• Christoph Grienberger (1561–1636) – Jesuit astronomer after whom the crater Gruemberger on the Moon is named; verified Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons.
  
• Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663) – Jesuit who discovered the diffraction of light (indeed coined the term "diffraction"), investigated the free fall of objects, and built and used instruments to measure geological features on the moon
  
• Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 – 1253) – bishop who was one of the most knowledgeable men of the Middle Ages; has been called "the first man ever to write down a complete set of steps for performing a scientific experiment"[16]
  
• Johann Grueber (1623–1680) – Jesuit missionary and astronomer in China
  
• Paul Guldin (1577–1643) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who discovered the Guldinus theorem to determine the surface and the volume of a solid of revolution
  
• Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685–1724) – Jesuit known for his early work on lighter-than-air airship design
  

H

• Johann Georg Hagen (1847–1930) – Jesuit director of the Georgetown and Vatican Observatories; the crater Hagen on the Moon is named after him
  
• Frank Haig (1928–) – American physics professor
  
• Nicholas Halma (1755–1828) – French abbot, mathematician, and translator
  
• Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706) – French priest, natural philosopher, and secretary of the Academie Royale des Sciences
  
• René Just Haüy (1743–1822) – priest known as the father of crystallography
  
• Maximilian Hell (1720–1792) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory who wrote astronomy tables and observed the Transit of Venus; the crater Hell on the Moon is named after him
  
• Michał Heller (1936–) – Polish priest, Templeton Prize winner, and prolific writer on numerous scientific topics
  
• Lorenz Hengler (1806–1858) – priest often credited as the inventor of the horizontal pendulum
  
• Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) – Benedictine historian, music theorist, astronomer, and mathematician
  
• Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809) – Jesuit philologer and discoverer of the Austronesian language family.
  
• Pierre Marie Heude (1836–1902) – Jesuit missionary and zoologist who studied the natural history of Eastern Asia
  
• Franz von Paula Hladnik (1773–1844) – priest and botanist who discovered several new kinds of plants, and certain genera have been named after him
  
• Giovanni Battista Hodierna (1597–1660) – priest and astronomer who catalogued nebulous objects and developed an early microscope
  
• Johann Baptiste Horvath (1732–1799) – Hungarian physicist who taught physics and philosophy at the University of Tyrnau, later of Buda, and wrote many Newtonian textbooks
  
• Victor-Alphonse Huard (1853–1929) – priest, naturalist, educator, writer, and promoter of the natural sciences
  

I

• Maximus von Imhof (1758–1817) – German Augustinian physicist and director of the Munich Academy of Sciences
  
• Giovanni Inghirami (1779–1851) – Italian Piarist astronomer who has a valley on the moon named after him as well as a crater
  

J

• Frans Alfons Janssens (1865–1924) – Catholic priest and the discoverer of crossing-over of genes during meiosis, which he called 'chiasmatypie'
  
• François Jacquier (1711–1788) – Franciscan mathematician and physicist; at his death he was connected with nearly all the great scientific and literary societies of Europe
  
• Stanley Jaki (1924–2009) – Benedictine priest and prolific writer who wrote on the relationship between science and theology
  
• Ányos Jedlik (1800–1895) – Benedictine engineer, physicist, and inventor; considered by Hungarians and Slovaks to be the unsung father of the dynamo and electric motor
  

K

• Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706) – Jesuit missionary and botanist who established the first pharmacy in the Philippines; the genus Camellia is named for him
  
• Eusebio Kino (1645–1711) – Jesuit missionary, mathematician, astronomer and cartographer; drew maps based on his explorations first showing that California was not an island, as then believed; published an astronomical treatise in Mexico City of his observations of the Kirsch comet
  
• Otto Kippes (1905–1994) – priest acknowledged for his work in asteroid orbit calculations; the main belt asteroid 1780 Kippes was named in his honour
  
• Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) – Jesuit who has been called the father of Egyptology and "Master of a hundred arts"; wrote an encyclopedia of China; one of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope; in his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658 he noted the presence of "little worms" or "animalcules" in the blood, and concluded that the disease was caused by micro-organisms; this is antecedent to germ theory
  
• Wenceslas Pantaleon Kirwitzer (1588–1626) – Jesuit astronomer and missionary to China who published observations of comets
  
• Jan Krzysztof Kluk (1739–1796) – priest, naturalist agronomist, and entomologist who wrote a multi-volume work on Polish animal life
  
• Marian Wolfgang Koller (1792–1866) – Benedictine professor who wrote on astronomy, physics, and meteorology
  
• Franz Xaver Kugler (1862–1929) – Jesuit chemist, mathematician, and Assyriologist who is most noted for his studies of cuneiform tablets and Babylonian astronomy
  

L

• Ramon Llull (c. 1232 – c. 1315) – Majorcan writer and philosopher, logician and a Franciscan tertiary considered a pioneer of computation theory
  
• Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) – French deacon and astronomer noted for cataloguing stars, nebulous objects, and constellations
  
• Joseph-Clovis-Kemner Laflamme (1849–1910) – chair of mineralogy and geology at Université Laval, president of the Royal Society of Canada from 1891 to 1892, and chevalier of the Légion d'honneur
  
• Eugene Lafont (1837–1908) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and founder of the first Scientific Society in India
  
• Antoine de Laloubère (1600–1664) – Jesuit and first mathematician to study the properties of the helix
  
• Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) – Oratorian philosopher and mathematician who wrote on the parallelogram of forces
  
• Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga (1771–1848) – Uruguayan priest, naturalist and botanist who made important contributions to these scientific disciplines. He was a decisive influence behind the foundation of the National Library of Uruguay and the National University of Uruguay. His face appears on the 2000 Uruguayan peso banknotes.
  
• Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) – priest and entomologist whose works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today
  
• Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) – Belgian priest and father of the Big Bang theory
  
• Émile Licent (1876–1952) – French Jesuit trained as a natural historian; spent more than 25 years researching in Tianjin, China
  
• Joseph Liesganig (1719–1799) – Austrian astronomer and geodesist who managed the Jesuit observatory in Vienna between 1756 and 1773
  
• Thomas Linacre (c. 1460 – 1524) – English priest, humanist, translator, and physician
  
• Francis Line (1595–1675) – Jesuit magnetic clock and sundial maker who disagreed with some of the findings of Newton and Boyle
  
• Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606–1682) – Cistercian who wrote on a variety of scientific subjects, including probability theory
  
• João de Loureiro (1717–1791) – Portuguese mathematician and botanist active in Cochinchina
  

M

• Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) – Benedictine monk and scholar, considered the founder of palaeography and diplomatics
  
• James B. Macelwane (1883–1956) – Jesuit seismologist who contributed a volume to the first textbook on seismology in America
  
• John MacEnery (1797–1841) – archaeologist who investigated the Palaeolithic remains at Kents Cavern
  
• Manuel Magri (1851–1907) – Jesuit ethnographer, archaeologist and writer; one of Malta's pioneers in archaeology
  
• Emmanuel Maignan (1601–1676) – Minim physicist and professor of medicine who published works on gnomonics and perspective
  
• Christopher Maire (1697–1767) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician who collaborated with Roger Boscovich on calculations of the arc of the meridian
  
• Pál Makó [de] (1724–1793) – Hungarian mathematician and physicist who taught mathematics, experimental physics and mechanics at the Vienna Theresianum and had a part in the preparation of the Ratio educationis (1777), which reformed the imperial teaching system in the spirit of Enlightenment
  
• Charles Malapert (1581–1630) – Jesuit writer, astronomer, and proponent of Aristotelian cosmology; also known for observations of sunpots, the lunar surface, and the southern sky; the crater Malapert on the Moon is named after him
  
• Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) – Oratorian philosopher who studied physics, optics, and the laws of motion and disseminated the ideas of Descartes and Leibniz
  
• Marcin of Urzędów (c. 1500 – 1573) – priest, physician, pharmacist, and botanist
  
• Joseph Maréchal (1878–1944) – Jesuit philosopher and psychologist
  
• Edme Mariotte (c. 1620 – 1684) – priest and physicist who recognized Boyle's Law and wrote about the nature of color
  
• Francesco Maurolico (1494–1575) – Benedictine who made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy, and gave the first known proof by mathematical induction
  
• Christian Mayer (astronomer) (1719–1783) – Jesuit astronomer most noted for pioneering the study of binary stars
  
• James Robert McConnell (1915–1999) – Irish theoretical physicist, pontifical academician, Monsignor
  
• Michael C. McFarland (1948–) – American computer scientist and president of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts
  
• Paul McNally (1890–1955) – Jesuit astronomer and director of Georgetown Observatory; the crater McNally on the Moon is named after him
  
• William W. Meissner (1931–2010) – Jesuit psychiatrist and psychoanalytic theorist, recipient of the Oskar Pfister Award and William C. Bier Award
  
• Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) – Augustinian friar and father of genetics
  
• Pietro Mengoli (1626–1686) – priest and mathematician who first posed the famous Basel Problem
  
• Giuseppe Mercalli (1850–1914) – priest, volcanologist, and director of the Vesuvius Observatory who is best remembered today for his Mercalli scale for measuring earthquakes which is still in use
  
• Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) – Minim philosopher, mathematician, and music theorist, so-called "father of acoustics"
  
• Paul of Middelburg (1446–1534) – Bishop who wrote on the reform of the calendar
  
• Maciej Miechowita (1457–1523) – canon who wrote the first accurate geographical and ethnographical description of Eastern Europe, as well as two medical treatises
  
• François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno (1804–1884) – Jesuit physicist and mathematician; was an expositor of science and translator rather than an original investigator
  
• Juan Ignacio Molina (1740–1829) – Jesuit naturalist, historian, botanist, ornithologist and geographer
  
• Gerald Molloy (1834–1906) – Irish priest, professor of natural philosophy at (and later Rector of) the Catholic University of Ireland, and expert on electricity
  
• Louis Moréri (1643–1680) – 17th-century priest and encyclopaedist
  
• Theodorus Moretus (1602–1667) – Jesuit mathematician and author of the first mathematical dissertations ever defended in Prague; the lunar crater Moretus is named after him
  
• Roberto Landell de Moura (1861–1928) – Brazilian Jesuit, developing long-distance audio transmissions, using a variety of technologies, including an improved megaphone device. photophone (using light beams) and radio signals.
  
• Gabriel Mouton (1618–1694) – abbot, mathematician, astronomer, and early proponent of the metric system
  
• Jozef Murgaš (1864–1929) – priest who contributed to wireless telegraphy and helped develop mobile communications and wireless transmission of information and human voice
  
• José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808) – canon, botanist, and mathematician who led the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New World
  

N

• Bienvenido Nebres (1940–) – Filipino mathematician, president of Ateneo de Manila University, and an honoree of the National Scientist of the Philippines award
  
• John Needham (1713–1781) – English biologist and Catholic priest
  
• Antonio Neri (1576–1614) – Italian priest who wrote the first major treatise on the science of glassmaking
  
• Jean François Niceron (1613–1646) – Minim mathematician who studied geometrical optics
  
• Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) – cardinal, philosopher, jurist, mathematician, astronomer, and one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century
  
• Julius Nieuwland (1878–1936) – Holy Cross priest, known for his contributions to acetylene research and its use as the basis for one type of synthetic rubber, which eventually led to the invention of neoprene by DuPont
  
• Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770) – abbot and physicist who discovered the phenomenon of osmosis in natural membranes
  

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This list is only A through N. The complete list is too long to post. 

The full list may be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ca...scientists

Please note that this list is only of scientists and mathematicians who were also Catholic clergymen. Non-clergy Catholics are in a separate list.

[The Grand Nudger]

Better educated work forces raise everybody up. Keeping them ignorant was to keep them from thinking.

People keep asserting that they were “kept ignorant” but keep failing to provide evidence this was some active policy by … anyone. Can you provide some?

I guess you're unfamiliar with anti literacy laws as well. It's a good thing you came here, in case you ever wanted to write another book about history for us.