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The Sun in the Church

The Catholic Church is portrayed as an institution that has been willing to impose the heavy hand of censorship to suppress scientific freedom. But nothing could be further from the truth. Beginning with the recovery of ancient learning in the twelfth century and continuing through the Copernican upheavals and on even into the Enlightenment, the Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy - Copernican and otherwise - than did any other institution.