NEWS PROVIDED BY
Catholic League
Sept. 2, 2025

NEW YORK, Sept. 2, 2025 /Standard Newswire/ — New York Times reporter William J. Broad has a front-page story today depicting President Trump as anti-science, citing his affinity with the Catholic Church’s alleged anti-science pedigree.

Last week, Trump fired the new director of the CDC, as well as other employees at the organization. This makes him “anti-science.” In 2021, under the Biden administration, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency fired dozens of scientists and other experts from two key advisory boards, yet the New York Times did not brand the purge as “anti-science.” So this is politics, as usual.

What the reporter says about the Catholic Church is just as tainted. It is accused of engaging in a “war on science” that began four centuries ago. Naturally, Galileo is trotted out, as is Copernicus and Giordano Bruno; the latter was “an advocate of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory” who was burned at the stake in 1600.

Despite what the Times wants its readers to believe, the contributions made by the Catholic Church to the Scientific Revolution were central.

Social scientist Charles Murray examined approximately four thousand first-time scientific accomplishments. Almost all—nearly 100 percent—of the scientific and technological breakthroughs in history originated in Europe or North America. He came to a conclusion he did not anticipate: the key to understanding this phenomenon is Christianity.

Murray points to the critical role that Thomas Aquinas played in combining Aristotelian thought with Catholic teachings. “What Aquinas did,” Murray notes, “was to say that creating beauty is pleasing to God, that discovering the workings of his universe is pleasing to God, and glorifies God, and that by doing these things you are fulfilling your role as a Christian.”

The many achievements that Murray cites are traceable to the Scientific Revolution. It would not have taken place absent the role of the Catholic Church. Sociologist Rodney Stark emphasized that it was in medieval European Christian universities where science began. British scientist James Hannam also credits the Catholic Church with pioneering the Scientific Revolution, noting “most of the stories about how the Church held back science are myths that arose after the Middle Ages.”

As for Galileo, it is disingenuous to say that he lived “under the threat of torture.” The truth is he was never tortured and never even spent a day in prison. He spent his time in “house arrest” in an apartment in a Vatican palace, with a servant. His work was initially praised by Pope Urban VIII, who bestowed many gifts and medals on him.

Galileo did not get into trouble because of his ideas—his ideas were taken from a priest, Copernicus. The Times does not mention that he was a priest, nor does it mention that Father Roger Boscovich continued to explore Copernican ideas at the same time that Galileo was charged with heresy. What Galileo did to anger the Church was to present his hypothesis as fact—that was the heresy.

The newspaper’s readers never learn that Copernicus’s theory found a receptive audience with Pope Clement VII. Nor are they appraised of the fact that a century later, all of Galileo’s works were published. In 1741, Pope Benedict XIV granted them an imprimatur.

Contrary to what the Times says, Bruno was not punished for his Copernican ideas: he was punished because the priest denied the central teachings of the Catholic Church. He denied the divinity of Jesus, the virginity of Our Blessed Mother, the Trinity and transubstantiation. He left nothing on the table. Moreover, he was not only excommunicated by the Catholic Church, he was given the heave-ho by the Swiss Calvinists, the German Lutherans and the English Anglicans as well.

What really makes the Times story so rich is that the newspaper is guilty of conducting it own war on science. By maintaining that the sexes are interchangeable, and by referring to biological men who declare themselves to be a woman—like the Minneapolis Catholic mass shooter—as “she” and “her,” the newspaper is flexing its anti-science muscles.

Rapping Trump and the Catholic Church is standard fare for the “newspaper of record.” But this story is unusually sordid.

Contact the paper’s executive editor, Joseph Kahn: joekahn@nytimes.com

SOURCE Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

CONTACT: 212-371-3191, pr@catholicleague.org