“Churchmen sought to introduce rational trial procedures and sophisticated legal principles in place of the superstition-based trial by ordeal that had characterized the Germanic legal order.”

“(Catholic) monks taught metallurgy, introduced new crops, copied ancient texts, preserved literacy, pioneered in technology, invented champagne, improved the European landscape, provided for wanderers of every stripe, and looked after the lost and shipwrecked.”

“The exaltation of human reason and its capabilities, a commitment to rigorous and rational debate, a promotion of intellectual inquiry and scholarly exchange--all sponsored by the Church--provided the framework for the Scientific Revolution.”

“Father Nicholas Steno, is often identified as the father of geology.”

“The father of Egyptology was Father Athanasius Kircher.”

“The first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a free falling body was Father Giambattista Riccioli.”

“Father Roger Boscovich is often credited as the father of modern atomic theory.”