While watching the Colbert Report the other day, I discovered something interesting. The Catholic Church has called in experts to study the possibility of intelligent life on other planets. Having grown up Catholic, I am a bit ashamed that I found out about this through Colbert instead of say…my family priest, but nonetheless I am rather impressed with the Catholic Church’s embrace of science.

This extraterrestrial curiosity is in stark contrast with the church’s views on the subject in 1600, when they burned Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno at the stake as a heretic for speculating their could be life elsewhere. Clearly they have come a long way.

“Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom,” said Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, in an interview with Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

And while I found this new acceptance of science surprising, I suppose its not that out of line with their beliefs on other scientific issues. The Church has long accepted the existence of evolution, and has released several statements saying that evolution does not conflict with the idea of intelligent design nor with Christian beliefs.

In March of this year, the Vatican hosted a conference on the teachings of Darwin, to mark the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.” At this conference, William Cardinal Levada, the head of the Catholic Church’s highest doctrinal body, addressed claims by popular atheists such as Richard Dawkins that science disproves the existence of religion that, “… we think that’s absurd and not at all proven. But other than that, the Vatican has recognized that it doesn’t stand in the way of scientific realities.”

I find it exciting that the Catholic Church, being the largest organized religion in the world, is willing to accept these scientific discoveries that a lot of people on this earth would deny until they dropped dead. Science has long had a problem with relating to, and becoming a part of, the lives of those who might not completely understand or want to understand new discoveries. If a Church of this magnitude is willing to accept it, this is one of the first big steps in getting regular people all over the world to accept and be excited about scientific discoveries.

Further, it is exciting that the Catholic Church is willing to incorporate science into the doctrine without taking away from the power of God or the word of the Bible. Many people feel that you can have science or religion, but never both. The explanations coming forth from the Catholic Church may help to fizzle out the disagreement between science pushers and religion lovers and make the discussion of religion in science a lot less uncomfortable. I know a lot of kids would stop squirming while their biology teacher talked about evolution if they could accept that knowledge while not losing ground on their religious beliefs.

I accept that the Catholic Church should do more to include our modern day lifestyle into their doctrine, and I definitely accept that they should update much of their rituals and traditions such as allowing priests to marry or women to join the priesthood. However, I am definitely beginning to think that we shouldn’t be so judgmental of the Church when it comes to science.

Jessica Huseman is a sophomore political science and journalism double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].