ROCHESTER, Minn. (OSV News) -- Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester and his apostolate Word on Fire host their second annual Wonder Conference Aug. 2-4 and dive into a number of current hot topics -- evolution, gender and artificial intelligence, to name a few. Organizers say that they hope the conference, which brings together roughly 750 priests, religious and laypeople in Rochester, can equip Catholics to discuss these topics in a world that often regards faith and science as incompatible. "Science doesn't turn us from God, it orders us to God," Bishop Barron said at his keynote at the inaugural Wonder Conference in January 2023. This year's conference takes up "nature and the body" as its theme, a topic that is "of great general concern," said Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute. "In the broad cultural conversation, at many different levels, the meaning and nature of the human body has really come up for a great contestation right now. There are ideologies that are prevalent in big parts of the culture that have totally redefined the meaning of the body to the detriment of a lot of people in some very destructive ways," Petrusek said. He hopes the conference will refute the belief that there must be a "moral choice between either being a faithful person or being a person who respects and is guided by the scientific method."