Video 20 minutes Level: all audiences A presentation for high school students by Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, a self-described nerd whose boss is the Pope, on his own choices, on God, and on studying the universe.
Continue reading →Audio 40 minutes Level: all audiences A 2020 interview with James Kurzynski, a priest of the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, who is an amateur astronomer, a writer for the Vatican Observatory Sacred Space Astronomy blog, and a presenter for the VO Faith and Science workshops. The conversation covers a variety of topics: How Kurzynski’s own interests in both the natural world (especially astronomy) and in the priesthood developed through his youth. His view on what science is—a powerful, but limited, way of describing an aspect of creation. The nuts and bolts of being an amateur astronomer, and the experiences of amateur astronomers—ranging from a tendency to overfocus on equipment, to being culturally misunderstood, to showing family members the Milky Way. His involvement with the Vatican Observatory and his role in the Faith and Science workshops. Click here for the audio, from Minnesota Catholic Podcasts.
Continue reading →Article 3800 words Level: all audiences This is the English text of an article by Br. Guy Consolmagno, Director of the Vatican Observatory, that was published in La Civiltà Cattolica in 2019 which in turn was based on a paper presented to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in November 2016 and published in Science and Sustainability: Impacts of Scientific Knowledge and Technology on Human Society and Its Environment. Click here for the version published in La Civiltà Cattolica. Click here for the Science and Sustainability presentation. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Videos (5) Each video approximately 3 minutes Level: all audiences Fr. William Stoeger, S. J. (1943-2014) was a staff scientist for the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, specializing in theoretical cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and interdisciplinary studies relating to science, philosophy and theology. In these videos from Loyola Productions Munich he responds to a variety of questions. The videos were recorded in 2001.
Continue reading →Article (Flyer) 4 pages Level: high school and above A January 2020 flyer produced by the Vatican Observatory Foundation that highlights the science done with the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope or VATT. The flyer was created for the 25th anniversary of the VATT. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Article 4800 words Level: university In this paper by Gabriele Gionti, S.J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory Research Group, Gionti notes the problem in thinking of God as the “cause” of the Big Bang in the same way that certain versions of deism think of a “demiurge” god. He notes how there has long been a close relation between cosmology and religion, as the beauty and harmony human beings see looking at the skies invokes the idea of an architect of this harmony. But he argues that Georges Lemaître was right in stressing a separation between theological and scientific methods. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Article (blog post) 1800 words Level: all audiences “Is the Vatican Observatory searching for the star called Wormwood from the Book of Revelation?” This question was asked during the Q&A session that followed a talk about the V.O. given by one of the members of the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s Board of Directors, and Christopher Graney, writing for the Vatican Observatory’s Sacred Space Astronomy (The Catholic Astronomer) blog, answers it. Click here to read this article from Sacred Space Astronomy (The Catholic Astronomer), the blog of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Continue reading →Video 7.5 minutes Level: all audiences This video from the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s YouTube channel features Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, Professor and Director of the Astrophysics Doctorate at Universidad Andrés Bello, Dante Minniti, and different student participants in the 2018 Vatican Observatory Summer School (VOSS), discussing the VOSS (“the best summer school in the world”).
Continue reading →Video 24 minutes Level: all audiences This video from the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s YouTube channel features Audra Baleisis, a former student from the Vatican Observatory Summer School (VOSS), discussing her experiences at the Summer School and how those experiences related to aspects of her career in astronomy education. From the Vatican Observatory Foundation: Dr. Audra Baleisis, Instructional Consultant at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching Engineering at the University of Michigan, spoke at the 2017 Annual Seminar held in Ann Arbor. Audra is also an alumna of one of the Vatican Observatory Summer Schools (VOSS) in Castel Gandolfo. In her talk she described the summer school and how it affected her. The schools are unique in that they are comprised of only 25 international beginning graduate students in astrophysics – any two from any one country. Hear how Audra describes her experience and how it affected her.
Continue reading →Article 4 pages Level: high school and above This is an 1868 paper by Fr. Angelo Secchi, who conducted pioneering research into the nature of stars and whose work laid the foundations for the modern Vatican Observatory. Here Fr. Secchi groups stars by the characteristics of their spectra, noting that stars seem to fall into a certain number of types. He writes, “We have therefore, without doubt, in the heavens a grand fact, the fundamental distinction between the stars according to a small number of types; this opens a field for very many important cosmological speculations.” He also notes that observing the spectra of stars can tell us something about their motions. Indeed, studying the motions of stars by means of their spectra has yielded all sorts of information about them, including whether they have planets orbiting them. Fr. Secchi’s paper was published in the Report of the Thirty-Eighth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science [1868]. Click … Continue reading →