In the process of researching the phenomenon, Heilbron uncovered a surprising story of cooperation not only between religion and science, but between precision astronomical observation and Catholic liturgy, between architectural design and the Christian calendar. Direct, even enthusiastic collaboration, uniting esoteric science with canonical religious belief, lay at the core of this hidden story.
The very fact that there is a longstanding connection between astronomical observation and the Catholic Church would surprise many modern readers. If anything, the relationship between these institutions—that is, between the altar and the telescope, the cathedral and the meridian line—would appear to be antagonistic, even contradictory. After all, the Church rather infamously persecuted Galileo in the 17th century for suggesting that the Earth is not, in fact, at the center of the cosmos, and that, by extension, Church doctrine relating to God’s orderly plans for the world were inherently flawed. Galileo’s fatal rejection as a heretic has become emblematic of the popular belief that there is an abyss separating religious faith from rational scientific inquiry.
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