Today Google published a wonderful "Google Doodle" celebrating the 374th birthday of Blessed Nicolas Steno. Bishop Steno is known as "The Father of Geology" along with notable contributions in the fields of Anatomy, Paleontology, Stratigraphy, and Crystallography. My secular friends are truly astonished that Roman Catholic clerics could be capable scientists and priests at the same time. They constantly remind me of Galileo and his treatment, even though his arrogance equaled that of the bishops who placed him under house arrest. I sympathize with Galileo's incarceration but not his sloppy science. That being said you would think the Catholic Church was inhabited only by Luddites with an unholy dogma geared to a rigid party line. To my friends surprise (truth always surprises) the list of renowned Catholic clerics is astonishing. Sometimes the facts get in the way of our dogmas. I think it was G.K. Chesterton who said there were two kinds of people in the world, those who have a dogma and know it and those who have one and don't know it. All my non Catholic friends including but not exclusively agnostics, atheists, practitioners of wicca, and yes even evangelical protestants please temporarily suspend your personal "anti science Catholic Church" dogmas and help me celebrate some of the greatest scientists of western civilization who happened to be Roman Catholic priests. The Church and science are not mutually exclusive. JMJ. Mick, SFO