This is a list of Catholic clergy throughout history who have made contributions to science. These churchmen-scientists include Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaître, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Roger Joseph Boscovich, Marin Mersenne, Bernard Bolzano, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan, Robert Grosseteste, Christopher Clavius, Nicolas Steno, Athanasius Kircher, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, and William of Ockham. The Catholic Church has also produced many lay scientists and mathematicians.
The Jesuits in particular have made numerous significant contributions to the development of science. For example, the Jesuits have dedicated significant study to earthquakes, and seismology has been described as "the Jesuit science."Susan Elizabeth Hough, Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man, Princeton University Press, 2007, , p. 68. The Jesuits have been described as "the single most important contributor to experimental physics in the seventeenth century." According to Jonathan Wright in his book God's Soldiers, by the eighteenth century the Jesuits had "contributed to the development of pendulum clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflecting telescopes and microscopes, to scientific fields as various as magnetism, optics and electricity. They observed, in some cases before anyone else, the colored bands on Jupiter's surface, the Andromeda Nebula and Saturn's rings. They theorized about the circulation of the blood (independently of Harvey), the theoretical possibility of flight, the way the moon affected the tides, and the wave-like nature of light."
Because there is a List of lay Catholic scientists, this list does not include lay members of religious orders, such as ordinary monks and nuns, brothers and sisters, or anyone in minor orders at such times that those were not considered clergy.
List
A José de Acosta (1539–1600) – Jesuit missionary and naturalist who wrote one of the first detailed and realistic descriptions of the new world"Kish, George."Acosta, José De". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Detroit: Scribners, 2008. François d'Aguilon (1567–1617) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician, architect, and physicist, who worked on optics Lorenzo Albacete (1941–2014) – priest, physicist, and theologian Albert of Castile (c. 1460 – 1522) – Dominican priest and historian Albert of Saxony (philosopher) (c. 1320 – 1390) – German bishop known for his contributions to logic and physics; with Buridan he helped develop the theory that was a precursor to the modern theory of inertia Albertus Magnus (c. 1206 – 1280) – Dominican friar and Bishop of Regensburg who has been described as "one of the most famous precursors of modern science in the High Middle Ages." Patron saint of natural sciences; Works in physics, logic, metaphysics, biology, and psychology. Giulio Alenio (1582–1649) – Jesuit theologian, astronomer and mathematician; was sent to the Far East as a missionary and adopted a Chinese name and customs; wrote 25 books, including a cosmography and a Life of Jesus in Chinese. José María Algué (1856–1930) – priest and meteorologist who invented the barocyclonometerUdias, Agustin. Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories. London: Springer, 2011, p. 151. Bartolomé de Alva (ca. 1597 - after 1640) mestizo (Spanish-Náhuatl) Mexican priest, scholar of the Náhuatl language, author of religious books in Náhuatl and translations of Spanish plays into Náhuatl José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799) – priest, scientist, historian, cartographer, and meteorologist who wrote more than thirty treatises on a variety of scientific subjects Bartholomeus Amicus (1562–1649) – Jesuit who wrote about include Aristotelian philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and the concept of vacuum and its relationship with God Stefano degli Angeli (1623–1697) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit), philosopher and mathematician, known for his work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus Pierre Ango (1640–1694) – Jesuit scientist who published a book on optics Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli (1817–1899) – priest and botanist who was one of the first to introduce microphotography into the study of biology Giovanni Antonelli (1818–1872) – priest and astronomer who served as director of the Ximenian Observatory of Florence Nicolò Arrighetti (1709–1767) – Jesuit who wrote treatises on light, heat, and electricity Mariano Artigas (1938–2006) – Spanish physicist, philosopher and theologian Giuseppe Asclepi (1706–1776) – Jesuit astronomer and physician who served as director of the Collegio Romano observatory; the lunar crater Asclepi is named after him Nicanor Austriaco – Dominican microbiologist, associate professor of biology and professor of theology at Providence College as well as chief researcher at the Austriaco Laboratory
B Roger Bacon (c. 1214 – 1294) – Franciscan friar who made significant contributions to mathematics and optics and has been described as a forerunner of modern scientific methodWoods 2005, p. 94 Bernardino Baldi (1533–1617) – abbot, mathematician, and writer Eugenio Barsanti (1821–1864) – Piarist, possible inventor of the internal combustion engineDay, Lance, and Ian McNeil (eds). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. London: Routledge, 1996, p. 78. Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685) – Bartoli and fellow Jesuit astronomer Niccolò Zucchi are credited as probably having been the first to see the equatorial belts on the planet Jupiter Joseph Bayma (1816–1892) – Jesuit known for work in stereochemistry and mathematics Giovanni Battista Beccaria (1716–1781) – Piarist, physicist, teacher of Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, correspondent of Benjamin Franklin Giacopo Belgrado (1704–1789) – Jesuit professor of mathematics and physics and court mathematician who did experimental work in electricity Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591 – 1666) – Jesuit astronomer, instrument maker and missionary in China Michel Benoist (1715–1774) – missionary to China and scientist Constanzo Beschi (1680-1747) - Jesuit missionary to South India, compiler of several Tamil lexicons, dictionaries and grammars, first European scholar of Tamil, Tamil poet (under the Tamil name of Vīramāmunivar) Mario Bettinus (1582–1657) – Jesuit philosopher, mathematician and astronomer; lunar crater Bettinus named after him Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named Jacques de Billy (1602–1679) – Jesuit who has produced a number of results in number theory which have been named after him; published several astronomical tables; the crater Billy on the Moon is named after him Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) – Cistercian botanist who contributed to the fields of medicine and toxicology Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) – priest, mathematician, and logician whose other interests included metaphysics, ideas, sensation, and truth Anselmus de Boodt (1550–1632) – canon who was one of the founders of mineralogy Theodoric Borgognoni (1205–1298) – Dominican friar, Bishop of Cervia, and medieval Surgeon who made important contributions to antiseptic practice and anaesthetics Thomas Borgmeier (1892–1975) – German-born priest and entomologist who worked in Brazil Christopher Borrus (1583–1632) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who made observations on the magnetic variation of the compass Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) – Jesuit polymath known for his contributions to modern atomic theory and astronomy and for devising perhaps the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) – Jesuit sinologist and cartographer who did his work in China Michał Boym (c. 1612 – 1659) – Jesuit who was one of the first westerners to travel within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous works on Asian fauna, flora and geography Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 1349) – Archbishop of Canterbury and mathematician who helped develop the mean speed theorem; one of the Oxford Calculators Martin Stanislaus Brennan (1845–1927) – priest and astronomer who wrote several books about science Henri Breuil (1877–1961) – priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist Jan Brożek (1585–1652) – Polish canon, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and physician; the most prominent Polish mathematician of the 17th century Pádraig de Brún (1889–1960) – Irish priest, mathematician, poet, and classical scholar; served as Professor of Mathematics at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, President of University College Galway, and Chairman of the Council of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Louis-Ovide Brunet (1826–1876) – priest, one of the founding fathers of Canadian botany Ismaël Bullialdus (1605–1694) – priest, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society; the Bullialdus crater is named in his honor Jean Buridan (c. 1300 – after 1358) – priest who formulated early ideas of momentum and inertial motion and sowed the seeds of the Copernican Revolution in Europe Tom Burke (1923–2008) – Irish Carmelite priest, physicist and school teacher, and co-founder of the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition Roberto Busa (1913–2011) – Jesuit, wrote a lemmatization of the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Index Thomisticus) which was later digitalized by IBM
C Niccolò Cabeo (1586–1650) – Jesuit mathematician; the crater Cabeus is named in his honor Nicholas Callan (1799–1846) – priest and Irish scientist best known for his work on the induction coil Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi (1764–1852) – archdeacon, mathematician, political economist and inventor of the tonograph John Cantius (1390–1473) – priest and Buridanist mathematical physicist who further developed the theory of impetus Jean Baptiste Carnoy (1836–1899) – priest, has been called the founder of the science of cytology Horacio Carochi (1586-1666) - Italian Jesuit priest, scholar of the Náhuatl language Giovanni di Casali (died c. 1375) – Franciscan friar who provided a graphical analysis of the motion of accelerated bodies Paolo Casati (1617–1707) – Jesuit mathematician who wrote on astronomy, meteorology, and vacuums; the crater Casatus on the Moon is named after him; published Terra machinis mota (1658), a dialogue between Galileo, Paul Guldin and father Marin Mersenne on cosmology, geography, astronomy and geodesy, giving a positive image of Galileo 25 years after his conviction. Giovanni Caselli (1815–1891) – priest who developed the pantelegraph, a forerunner of the fax machine Laurent Cassegrain (1629–1693) – priest who was the probable namesake of the Cassegrain telescope; the crater Cassegrain on the Moon is named after him Louis Bertrand Castel (1688–1757) – French Jesuit physicist who worked on gravity and optics in a Cartesian context Benedetto Castelli (1578–1643) – Benedictine mathematician; long-time friend and supporter of Galileo Galilei, who was his teacher; wrote an important work on fluids in motion Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598–1647) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit) known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy; his principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus; the lunar crater Cavalerius is named in his honor Antonio José Cavanilles (1745–1804) – priest and leading Spanish taxonomic botanist of the 18th century Francesco Cetti (1726–1778) – Jesuit zoologist and mathematician Tommaso Ceva (1648–1737) – Jesuit mathematician, poet, and professor who wrote treatises on geometry, gravity, and arithmetic