Impact of Christianity on western civilization
Centuries later, the Catholic church had lost interest in subjecting natural philosophy to dogma. The relation of the now separate Church of England to evolution was complicated by the lack of the centralised authority of a Pope. Many conservative clerics opposed evolution fiercely, whilst few liberal clerics saw conflict with their beliefs. Before he published the On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin feared the reaction of the church, and spent years collecting evidence as defence to the expected criticism. Long after heliocentrism was all but universally accepted, some Protestant leaders continued to resist evolution.