The author discusses the attitude of the Catholic church towards science, telling the story using various documents. Selected contents: the supposed Papal prohibition of dissection; the story of anatomy down to the Renaissance; the golden age of anatomy--Vesalius; the supposed Papal prohibition of chemistry; a Papal patron of education and science; the church and surgery during the Middle Ages; the Popes and medical education and the Papal medical school; the foundation of city hospitals; the church and the experimental method; churchmen and physical science in the Medieval universities; the church and the mentally afflicted; opposition to scientific progress.