Not known for deep understanding of high technology? The Catholic Church was behind the scientific discovery of The Big Bang through the Catholic priest (and astrophysicist) Lamaître. Mendel, the father of modern genetics, was an Augustinian friar. Steno, a Catholic bishop, formulated the foundational principles of stratigraphy, establishing geology as a formal science. Secchi, a Jesuit priest, was a pioneer in spectroscopy and the first to establish that the Sun is a star, creating the first stellar classification system.