I'm not Roman Catholic but is there consensus here that the Catholic Church has been

.......most of the scientific, educational, and engineering/literary/artistic progress and dominance of Western Civilization of the past two millennial?

(Yes, I fully expect to hear lots of droning about the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition -- but that is not my question.)

That's pretty funny

No, those things occurred in SPITE of the Catholic Church.

Just because the person who discovered/developed it was catholic doesn't mean it has anything to do with the Catholic church

Sort of, but many of the big scientific "discoveries" made by the church were made previously in Africa, India, and Central Asia. A lot of that knowledge was destroyed in the Great Library of Alexandria during the crusades.


So do they get credit for it still?

You mean they are responsible for the discovery that the earth is the center of the universe? Galileo went to jail for dare to say otherwise.

no more so Protestant , although there is some truth to it , despite what septics say

No, most of it relies on mathematics that was developed long before the Catholic church ever existed. Quit taking credit for something that is not yours.

Even if that were true, the main function of the Church is supposed to be in carrying out the commands of Jesus. In that area, she has failed miserably. Not only has the Church participated in all of this planet's bloodiest wars, but she has also promoted paganism. The Church has invented pagan holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. She has also incorporated the pagan cross in worship, although the cross is a pagan symbol that predates Christianity by thousands of years. You may not want to hear all of this, but you can't deny that the Church is the mother of "Christian" apostasy.

There's a great book on this called How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.
A review with info can be found here:

http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/westernciv.html