AMERICAN CATHOLICS AND SCIENCE 515 



the scholastics has traditionally refused to be weakened by 

 extrinsic influences. If the contemporary failure of Catholic 

 instruction in the sciences is a result of an authoritarian ap- 

 proach, that approach, in turn, is the result either of ignorance 

 of the value of the traditional methodology or the putting aside 

 of the difficult and demanding methodology of true science to 

 which the tradition adheres. In either case, it is not the theo- 

 retical problem of the relationship of philosophy, science and 

 religion which, in principle, was solved long ago, but the prac- 

 tical problem of Catholic educators, perhaps too busy to attend 

 to and apply the principles themselves, or perhaps too poorly 

 trained to appreciate the solution even when offered. 



The practical problem is compounded in the classroom when 

 the young mind is confronted with the distinction between 

 revealed truth and empirical knowledge. The former is usually 

 taught in short catechetical form which ignores the distinction. 

 Thus the catechism asks, " Who made you.^ " and answers, 

 " God made me." This is correct, but it does not explain how 

 this was accomplished through secondary causes. The explana- 

 tion perhaps will come later but, in the meantime, the child's 

 mind is satisfied and, unless he is given a further stimulus later 

 to investigate the natural phenomena of creation, he may 

 go through life with a very truncated understanding of his 

 existence. 



An aggravating factor in the stifling of interest in science 

 has been the unsatisfactory handling of scientific matters in 

 the press. The Catholic press in the United States has been 

 apathetic, if not actively inimical, to science. Granted that the 

 primary purpose of a Catholic periodical is to inform Catholics 

 about matters of the faith, they should deal with everything 

 that affects Catholics. Our Catholic periodicals do cover almost 

 everything from mystical theology to comics, and the sections 

 on sports often boast the dignity of a special editor, but one 

 finds little on science, and that little often badly done. Most 

 of the articles on science are " refutations " of some scientific 

 theory, generally by writers incompetent to judge the value of 

 the theory they are attacking. Heavy-handed humor supplies 



