Apologists and well-read Catholics can point to many priest-scientists and declare forcefully what Fr. Georges Lemaître discoverer of the "Big Bang" robustly proclaimed in 1933: "There is no conflict between religion and science."

Father Copernicus seems to have been so self-effacing that he was not considered well-known enough for a marked grave. He did not change the world as Christ did, but he changed the way the world is understood.

Time magazine's millennium issue failed to mention any of the immensely important contributions the Catholic Church has made to Western culture over the past 1000 years.