Category Archives: Science, Theology & Philosophy

Hobby Astronomer Priest Keeps His Eyes on the Heavens

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

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.    

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Contemplation and the Natural Sciences

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Audio 19 minutes Level: all audiences Michelle Francl, Ph.D. discusses her work connecting contemplative spiritual practice and the study of the natural sciences. Dr. Francl is a professor of Chemistry at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. She Francl maintains two blogs: Quantum Theology and The Culture of Chemistry. She is also a regular contributor to the Vatican Observatory Sacred Space Astronomy blog. Click here for this audio with addition information, from Creighton University. Click here for the audio directly, from Creighton University.    

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Finding God in the Cosmos: An Interview with a Vatican Astronomer

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 1700 words Level: all audiences A 2018 interview of Vatican Observatory astronomer David Brown, S.J., by Sean Salai, S.J., for America: The Jesuit Review.  Salai writes: David Brown, S.J., is a Vatican astronomer specializing in stellar evolution and a native of New Orleans who joined the Society of Jesus in 1991 after earning his B.S. in physics at Texas A&M University. Ordained a priest in 2002, Father Brown completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Oxford in England in 2008. Father Brown joined the Vatican Observatory in November 2008, working as a research astronomer and serving as caretaker of the telescopes in Castel Gandolfo. He is a member since 2009 of the American Astronomical Society and since 2012 of the International Astronomical Union. On Oct. 2, I interviewed him at Rockhurst High School during a lecture stop in Kansas City. The focus of the interview is the overlap between Fr. Brown’s vocation as a Jesuit and his … Continue reading →

Catholic physicist says harmony of faith, science is seamless, not effortless

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 1000 words Level: all audiences This 2018 article on CatholicPhilly.com features Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist and physicist at Cornell University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a convert to Catholicism.  Lunine has worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Juno mission to Jupiter. The article also touches on the Vatican Observatory and the Society of Catholic Scientists, both of which Lupine has been involved with. Click here to access this article courtesy of CatholicPhilly.com.    

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A Quaker Astronomer Reflects

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 48 pages Level: all audiences Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s A Quaker Astronomer Reflects: Can a Scientist also be Religious?, was published in 2013 by The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia. It is a short overview of what is known in astronomy, with comments relating to religious belief. This small book grew from a lecture she gave in Australia. Click here for a PDF copy of A Quaker Astronomer Reflects, courtesy of Quakers Australia. Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books. Burnell is an accomplished astronomer, now retired, who has served as President of the Royal Society and President of the Institute of Physics in the United Kingdom. She is perhaps best known for her role in the discovery of pulsars in 1967. She has also held leadership positions in the Quaker denomination, and in this book she touches on worship, Bible study, and St. Theresa of Avila as well as astronomy. Her theology is unorthodox, as she … Continue reading →

Al-Ghazālī – from The Incoherence of the Philosophers

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article (book excerpt) 630 words Level: all audiences An excerpt on religion and science from the Tahāfut al-falāsifa (or The Incoherence of the Philosophers) of Abu Hāmid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Tūsi al-Ghazālī. Al-Ghazālī, who lived in the eleventh century, is one of medieval Islam’s best-known religious intellectuals. [Click here to download PDF]    

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Can Faith and Science Coexist?

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article (blog posts) 1700 words (in two article) Level: all audiences These are two 2015 blog posts from Scientific American, written by two authors who had a “debate” regarding Faith and Science.  These posts are the top result returned by a “Bing” search for “faith and science”, and the third result returned by a “Google” search (as checked 9-5-2018).  The two authors are John Horgan—who directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, who writes regularly for Scientific American, and who describes himself as “a lapsed Catholic turned psychedelic agnostic”—and John Lennox, an Oxford mathematician and a Christian, who has debated Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer and other prominent non-believers. Click here for Horgan’s post entitled “Can Faith and Science Coexist?”, courtesy of Scientific American.  Click here for Horgan’s post courtesy of The Stute (the student newspaper of Stevens Institute). Click here for Lennox’s post entitled “Mathematician and Christian John Lennox Responds”, courtesy of Scientific American.   … Continue reading →

Ciencia, razón y fe: Un reto de nuestro tiempo

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 700 words Level: all audiences In this short 2012 article author José Manuel Giménez Amaya argues that three things are changing the relationship between science and religion. These are 1) the last two pontificates of the Catholic Church, in which much emphasis has been placed on the rationality of the faith and on the question of the knowledge of the truth 2) social problems produced from the experimental sciences 3) a desire for an interdisciplinary unity of knowledge. Giménez Amaya writes: En este diálogo la cuestión de fondo es el conocimiento de la verdad. Fe y ciencia no se oponen sino que se complementan para llegar a la verdad. Es este uno de los puntos nucleares del mensaje del Papa actual: el convencimiento de que todo lo que realmente es racional es compatible con la fe revelada por Dios y con las Sagradas Escrituras. Click here to access this article, courtesy of the Grupo Ciencia, Razón y Fe at … Continue reading →

Semblanza de Michael Heller (Premio Templeton 2008)

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 1100 words Level: all audiences A brief discussion by Javier Sánchez Cañizares regarding the life and work of Fr. Michael Heller (Fr. Heller is an adjunct scholar with the Vatican Observatory), on the occasion of Fr. Heller being awarded the 2008 Templeton Prize. Javier Sánchez Cañizares is part of the Grupo Ciencia, Razón y Fe at Universidad de Navarra. He writes: A partir de la supremacía de una superestructura matemática ideal (un campo formal o campo de ‘racionalidad’) sobre la materia, su pensamiento conduce a la idea tradicional de un Dios trascendente que, por otra parte, es el origen creador, el fundamento del ser, del que surge el espacio-tiempo del mundo creado. Heller explica su posición así en la conferencia de recepción del premio: “Los procesos del universo pueden ser visualizados como una sucesión de estados de modo que el estado precedente es causa del siguiente (…). Hay siempre una ley dinámica que prescribe cómo un estado genera otro. … Continue reading →

Physics Today: Thinking differently about science and religion

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article (Letter to Editor) and Responses 9 pages (total) Level: all audiences In February 2018 the journal Physics Today published a letter by Tom McLeish, Professor of Physics at Durham University, chair of the Royal Society’s education committee, and author of the book Faith and Wisdom in Science (Oxford University Press, 2014). The following June Physics Today published a number of responses to McLeish’s letter, along with additional remarks from McLeish.  McLeish writes: Driving an unhistorical and unrealistic wedge between science and religion has got to stop. It leads, in part, to the optionalism that we see in some public and political attitudes toward science, from climate change to vaccination. It damages the educational experience of our children, and it impoverishes our understanding of our own science’s historical context. Human beings live not only in a physical world but within historical narratives that give us values, purpose, and identity. Science sits on the branches and draws from the sap of … Continue reading →