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Nope, here's the real one: http://vaticanobservatory.org/... A testbed for a number of advanced telescope building techniques that have since gone on to play big roles in the current generation of optical scopes. And, still doing good research in its own right.

...and it even carries through to this day ...

I find it curious that for all the backwards stuff the Catholic Church does, evolution doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.

FWIW, the vatican observatory does real academic research: Planetary Sciences, Stellar Astronomy, Extragalactic Astronomy, Cosmology.
"With support from the Vatican government, the scientists at the Vatican Observatory have a freedom to choose research topics not constrained by three-year proposal cycles or passing scientific fashions. As a result, our research topics, reflecting the wide range of interests in our staff, can focus on long-term survey programs and sometimes risky cutting-edge topics."
http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=38&Itemid=145

Also, the current theory for the origin of the universe, the big bang theory, was developed by a priest and it was rejected by the "open minded" eminent scientists of the day because it was developed by a priest and "smelled of creationism". The term "big bang" was used by these eminent scientists as a pejorative.
"Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a priest from the Catholic University of Louvain, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom". The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space). The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts — an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory

Far better than donating it to a church or other anti-intellectual organization. Just saying.

Perhaps if you were a little more intellectual you would be aware that churches are not necessarily anti-intellectual.
http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=38&Itemid=145

The bible states a direct male lineage with names and ages from Adam (at Creation) to King Solomon. From there, it names kings and the lengths of their reigns. After that, events in the bible can be corroborated with records of other cultures, such as the death of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar.

Perhaps the Vatican Observatory is a better source of information regarding the age of the universe according to religious folk? I'm sure the priest who developed the big bang theory would disagree with the flawed Ussher chronology you offer. The Ussher chronology is considered flawed even amongst religious communities.

The primary flaw with the Ussher chronology is that it requires a *literal* interpretation of genesis, that "day" is the literal 24 hour period that we all know and love. My understanding is that most christian faiths believe that "day" was used in a figurative manner and describes steps of undetermined length not 24 hour periods. Man was "created" on "day" 6, so events that occurred on "day" 3 and 4 can not be measured chronologically. To be generous, Ussher could at most date man but not the universe; only after man's arrival are "days" observable events.

However I'm no biblical scholar so I'll leave further arguments to the "experts". I'm just a guy who does not believe that religious people are necessarily scientifically illiterate. Holders of such a belief seem to be ironically clinging to a religious-like article of faith, a dogma of their own.

Their error, as I understand it, is they imagine the universe entirely in terms of geometry, without trying to understand dynamics. How do they account for the path a satellite in a polar orbit takes over the earth?

You do realize that the widely accepted cosmological theory for the creation of the universe, the big bang, was introduced by a Roman Catholic priest?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître

Also the Vatican operates an observatory and does real research:
They study meteorites to "give us insights into how these samples were formed more than *4.5 billion* years ago when the planets themselves were being formed." Did you note that number rather? Not the 6,000 or so you were expecting is it.
While looking for dark matter they were involved in the discovery of two extrasolar planets.
They have helped explain perceived anomalies as background stars appearing in a sparse portion of a nebula, unrelated to the structure of the nebula.
They are researching why an unexpected amount of UV radiation is emanating from some young active stars.
They are helping to map out the geography of some galaxies and identify regions of star formation.
etc...
http://vaticanobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=38&Itemid=145

Obviously it's an attempt to live down what their predecessors did to Galileo, but I welcome it.

Vatican support for astronomy pre-dates Gailleo. Read the history of the observatory. Even the article you linked to mentions "four centuries of steady support.

The persecution of Gallileo probably had more to do with his insulting the pope (who had previously encouraged his work). This is obviously a bad thing as well, but its a very different bad thing from the popular perception.

Not really, but I find very funny that the Vatican is using “science and technology" to store its manuscripts, when at the same time they spit so much on this same science and technology.

The currently accepted theory regarding the origin of the universe, the "big bang" theory, was developed by a catholic priest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître

The vatican operates a world class astronomical observatory.
http://vaticanobservatory.org/VOF/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

When I was an undergraduate at a california state university the dean of the chemistry department was also the parish priest at a small local church.

Some religious individuals view math and science as a tool to understand god's creation. Isaac Newton comes to mind.

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Religion ("believing in something") is considered more important than science ("examining things"). So what is the surprise in that education in general goes down the drain? The home-schooling religious right has one thing correct: Education is fundamentally hostile to religion and all the other "we already have the answers" bullshit bingo.

Right, so that's why monks were the first groups of people in the modern era to set up organised schools for teaching things like grammar, mathematics, logic and philosophy (hence grammar schools). And why the Vatican has an official astronomer and funds serious astronomical research.

All through my (admittedly very conservative) Catholic upbringing, the preachers and teachers I encountered always emphasised not only the benefits of a deep and broad education, but also the importance of critical thinking, the dialectic method in theology and the necessity of questioning and understanding the rationale for belief.

I think that identifying organised religion with blind, anti-rational and anti-scientific viewpoints and hostility to education, or asserting some sort of mutual exclusivity between belief and critical thinking, would be a bigoted and foolish mistake on your part. Of course, since I am clearly a member of the "religious right", and was home-schooled to the age of seven, I expect you to dismiss my opinion completely.

OK, sorry to break up the church bashing (always popular here), but the article is way off base. Hint: when you see a badly photoshoped image of the Pope together with the creature from Alien, you're probably not in the science section any more.

I know people who attended (I'm also an astronomer myself, although I don't do biology) and it was a scientific astrobiology conference, not a theology conference and the topic was on the scientific possibilities and conditions of life on other planets. That's life, mind you, not [necessarily] intelligent life.

The conference, which ended about a week ago, was organized as part of the International Year of Astronomy and was sponsored by the Vatican Observatory which is a small, but well-respected, astronomical research center. To imply that the Vatican has become obsessed with extra-terrestrials because they hosted a scientific conference is just a gross distortion of reality.

Not too sure that they won completely and will continue to win... The BBC radio programme about Al-Hazar University (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/labandmosque.shtml) was interesting in pointing out that the Islamic scientific and religious frameworks do not have to be in opposition and can provide a way forward for each other. This is underlined by Vatican astronomy (see http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/ and http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/science-is-trut.html): hopefully The Church has accepted "The Galileo Affair" and moved on...

Well, Pope Pius XII approved of the Big Bang theory in 1951 and Pope John Paul II said "that it is acceptable for Catholics to believe and teach evolutionism."

The Vatican also has some fine astronomers (and one of the oldest astronomical research institutions).
http://vaticanobservatory.org/

The Vatican isn't as backwards as those fundamental christian creationists that take everything the bible says literally.