Faith and the Expanding Universe of Georges Lemaître

The three short years Lemaître was abroad equipped him with the tools of general relativity and an understanding of the astronomical data of the time, by which he would quickly revolutionize contemporary understanding of the history of the universe. [6] But this posed a serious problem for Einstein, because his theory of gravity required that matter distort space in such a way that a static universe—all matter, and space itself—would simply collapse upon itself. [9]

Lemaître’s time at Harvard enabled him to be engaged with the astronomical data, and by 1927 he understood how to interpret the galactic red shifts; galaxies were moving away from each other, but not by their own motion through fixed space.

Source: churchlife.nd.edu