The Catholic Church embraced a little science in order to support its claims about the final resting place of St. Paul. Using the very controversial* technique of Carbon Dating the church established the date of bones found in the sarcophagus thought to hold the remains of St. Paul. This is cool, but I wonder how all the other nutbag religious freaks who constantly attack Carbon Dating as the downfall of science will react when the science is used to claim the bones of one of their own. The Catholic Church is actually rather progressive when it comes to science**, having accepted the Theory of Evolution, the round Earth, remote controls and radio waves. Now if they could only get around their rule about the bodies of saints not decomposing. Seems a bone fragment is the result of decomposing, which is something Catholic saints aren’t supposed to do. Its tough to navigate the world of Vatican Science, with all the rumors, magic, rules and dogma that get jammed in the way of science. The only real rule is, if you don’t like it, its wrong, which should really be the basis for all science, not this BS results driven stuff. The Catholics will still have to embrace a little faith in science. The Carbon Dating results would only indicate this is A body from roughly the time period of St. Paul’s life. DNA evidence would be inconclusive anyway, even if they could get and test any DNA from the bone fragments.

*Carbon Dating is only controversial to the faith impaired.

**Except in cases of reproductive science where advances in disease prevention are commonly condemned, exposing millions to STDs and AIDS.