A Protestant Will Become President of the Papal Academy of Sciences

[Cetil]

The Academy has always been a purely advisory body and membership has never been restricted to Catholics. Ernest Rutherford, the physicist was not a Catholic but held a position on the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Alexis Carrel who became a Catholic on his death bed was an agnostic when appointed to the Pontifical Academy. He died in 1944. That's to name only two. And both "pre-conciliar" appointees.

C.