I  HAD BEEN invited to Australia  to give a science-and-religion talk to an association of Catholic professionals, but by the time I arrived in Brisbane my schedule had expanded into seven presentations, from school groups to university colloquia. Three of those groups asked to hear about Galileo.What makes Galileo such a touchstone for science-religion debates? Galileo was a friend of popes and princes, Jesuits and Dominicans – at a time when those two orders could hardly agree about anything. His reflections on science and religion have been praised by popes since Leo XIII. But ever since the late nineteenth century, when the myth of a war between science and religion first captured the popular imagination, Galileo has been cited as hero, villain and victim of that &ldqu