And answered seriously:
We have all heard about Galileo’s tragic confrontation with the church in the seventeenth century. However, as Cardinal Newman noted centuries ago, it is telling that this is almost the only example that comes to mind when arguing that the Church was at odds with science.
The historical evidence reveals a far more complex picture. Historian of science John L. Heilbron has noted that the Roman Catholic Church, “gave more financial aid and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and, probably, all other institutions.” The university system, too, was essentially an invention of the Catholic Church. As author Thomas Woods writes, “Historians have marveled at the extent to which intellectual debate in those universities was free and unfettered. The exaltation of human reason and its capabilities, a commitment to rigorous and rational debate, a promotion of intellectual inquiry and scholarly exchange—all sponsored by the Church—provided the framework for the Scientific Revolution.”
Logan Chipkin, “Did the Catholic Church Give Birth to Science?” at Areo
The Church recovered the classical academy—Plato and Aristotle and so forth.
As for the unfettered debate that was then permitted, under university atheism, it is becoming nearly extinct in many faculties today, due in part to disbelief in the reality of the mind.