Was Copernicus Catholic? Buridan? (Bishop) Oresme? Were the cardinal and bishop funding Copernicus' research Catholic? Did science only become self-sustaining in the Catholic West?
I'm sure you feel this is a rebuttal of some sort to my point, but I suspect you are alone in this.
Science became self-sustaining, despite the environment it developed in, because it increased the speed and reliability of research into the natural world.