We cannot find quick and easy answers for Frequently Asked Questions; if we could, people wouldn’t keep asking them. That means that they’re worth looking at simply as a way of understanding why maybe these aren’t exactly the questions we need to be asking.
A lot of questions that are frequently asked, are more general questions about God and the Universe than the specific topics covered elsewhere. A discussion of some of them can be found here.
A Critique to Astrology from “De Civitate Dei”
Book excerpt- 4500 words
- Level: high school and above
An excerpt from Augustine of Hippo’s The City of God concerning the topic of astrology. Augustine uses the issues of twins to criticize astrology from a practical standpoint, but he also attacks astrology from a theological standpoint. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti.
Click here for Augustine’s critique, from Inters.org.
A History of the Vatican Observatory
- Article (PDF)
- 35 pages
- Level: all audiences
This is chapter from the book The Heavens Proclaim: Astronomy and the Vatican. This chapter was written by Fr. Sabino Maffeo, a physicist with the Vatican Observatory since 1985, and is a condensed version of his book In the Service of Nine Popes.
Click here to download the chapter.
History of the Vatican Observatory
Across the Universe: Christmas Presence
Article (blog post)- 700 words
- General audiences
Vatican observatory astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., writes (in a post for The Catholic Astronomer blog) about both the Book of Job and about how he finds doing science to be like playing a game with God :
What’s it like, I am sometimes asked, to be both a Jesuit brother and an astronomer? I can compare it most easily to another memory from my childhood. I can recall a rainy summer afternoon, in our cottage by Lake Huron, spent playing cards with my mother. I couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, and I have never been much of a card player, but that wasn’t the point. It was a way for her to spend time with me, a young boy who would squirm at any overt sign of affection, a way of showing me that I was loved….
So how is that like being a Jesuit scientist? Because I feel that same emotion, now, in the lab. Every corner of nature that I puzzle over, every data set I plot hoping to see a pattern jump out, is a little game set for me by the Creator. Every time I finally get the solution, I can feel him cheering me on, laughing and saying, “Great! Now here’s another one.” Science is the greatest game; a game I get to play with God. It’s his way of telling me he loves me. My mom taught me that. And in the background, the stars sing for joy.
Across the Universe: Happy Birthday to Us
Article (blog post)- 600 words
- General audiences
Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J. writes on The Catholic Astronomer blog about the 125th birthday of the Vatican Observatory, and the history that lead to its foundation by Pope Leo XIII. Reflecting on that history, Br. Consolmagno writes:
But our cosmological ideas moved from Copernicus’ fixed sun, through Kepler’s elliptical orbits, to Kant’s idea of galaxies as island universes and Herschel’s measurement of our place in the Milky Way. Our modern speculations about multiple universes carry as much a tinge of science fiction as of natural philosophy. One lesson I hope we’ve learned is that no modern cosmology is a good basis for theological doctrine, simply because no matter how well founded our astronomy is we can expect it will eventually go out of date.
Across the Universe: View from afar
Article (blog post)- 750 words
- General audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, writes in a post on The Catholic Astronomer blog about using the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope or VATT to study small bodies in the outer solar system:.
By how often they brighten and dim, we measure how fast these bodies spin; by how much their brightness changes during these cycles, we get a measure of their irregular shapes. It is not particularly thrilling work. We point the telescope at a given object; take a three-minute exposure with our electronic camera; and then another exposure; and another; and another… These objects typically take about eight hours or more per spin; so we observe one body per night as it rises, crosses the sky, and sets in the west… checking the images for clarity, tweaking the focus, watching the skies to make sure that clouds are not moving in….
Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer – Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ
- Video
- One hour
- Level: all audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, gave this talk at the SETI Institute on February 22, 2013
No scientist is a Spock-like android; a scientist’s work is as intuitive, and just as full of human foibles, as a painting, a symphony, or a prayer. But most of us don’t have the opportunity (or training) to reflect on the human dimensions of our work. Br. Guy Consolmagno does; he is both a Jesuit brother and a planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory, splitting his time between the meteorite collection in Rome (which he curates) and the Vatican telescope in Arizona. Thanks to his Vatican connections, his work has sent him around the world several times to dozens of countries and every continent (including a meteorite hunting expedition to Antarctica). In this talk he will share some of those adventures, and reflect on the larger meaning of our common experience as scientists… not only what we do, but why we do it.
An Interview with Dr. Fr. Paul Gabor, S.J.
Article- 6000 words (two parts)
- High school level and above
An in-depth interview with Vatican Observatory astronomer Paul Gabor, S. J., by Scott Douglas Jacobsen, published in 2016 by In-Sight.
Part One – An interview with Dr. Fr. Paul Gabor, S.J. He discusses: childhood and adolescence trajectory influence on him, pivotal moments in personal development towards an interest in science and theology, the gains from the research and professional experiences; motivation for interest in philosophy and theology; the way that the priesthood entered and benefits personal life, and the greatest intellectual stimulation from within the Jesuits; origin of interest in physics, the physics of the small scale, and the instrumental side of particle physics; PhD work and entailed work, explanation for the lay person, and the esoteric aspects of this research.
Part two – An interview with Dr. Fr. Paul Gabor, S.J. He discusses: description of research areas and the reason for personal interest in these areas; entering the ranks of the Vatican Observatory, and the main misconception about the purpose of the Vatican Observatory’s Research Group in Tucson, Arizona and the Vatican Observatory in general; source of ability to speak eight languages and the assistance in current work; convictions in Roman Catholicism, and arguments and evidences for the truth of Christianity in general and Roman Catholicism in particular; and the current activities at the Vatican Observatory and the aim of the research in the future.
Click here for Part One of the interview.
Anatomy of a fall: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the story of g
Article (PDF)- 5 pages
- High school level and up
The first person to conduct precise gravity experiments was Fr. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, S. J. in the early seventeenth century. This 2012 article from the magazine Physics Today discusses Fr. Riccioli’s experiments regarding how gravity works and what was the acceleration due to gravity (now known as ‘g’).
Click here for a the article in PDF format (from Physics Today).
From the article:
Riccioli set a fine example for all the free-fall experiments that would follow. He was thorough. He provided an extensive description of his experimental procedure. He gathered data of sufficient quality to assess accurately the model in question.
But Riccioli’s work is also a standard of scientific integrity: He had set out expecting to disprove Galileo, but even when his experiments vindicated Galileo, he made a point of promptly sharing the news with an interested colleague. His attitude, like his experiment, was that of a fine scientist.
November Nights Promise Wonders in the Sky!
Article (blog post)- 800 words
- General audiences
Fr. James Kurzynski writes on The Catholic Astronomer blog about being a diocesan priest and an amateur astronomer, and notes some of the night sky objects he finds most appealing to observe:
What will you being doing this November? For me, November always provides a wonderful month to stargaze. The crisp fall evenings of western Wisconsin combined with low humidity provide a wonderful opportunity to appreciate the heavens….
There is a simple joy of looking up at the night sky at the same time every evening to see how much the moon and planets move in relation to each other and the surrounding stars….
As a Diocesan Priest, late night observation is getting harder as my work responsibilities increase and my exhaustion calls me to bed earlier and earlier. I always appreciate the opportunity to observe some fun early morning objects to feed my love of astronomy. Similar to observing the nightly movements of the planets and moon, Jupiter gives us a chance to observe this gas giant in relation to the bright star Spica.
I often try to make clear faith connections in my posts. This week, the only connection I wish to make is to encourage everyone to get out and enjoy God’s creation. If you live in a region similar to where I do, November can be a wonderful month to enjoy some stargazing amid nature’s last canvas of Fall colors. Have a great week and pray for clear skies!
The Church opposed to Science
Fr. George M. Searle
- Article (book chapter)
- 11 pages
- High school level and above
This is a chapter from an 1895 book entitled Plain Facts for Fair Minds: An Appeal to Candor and Common Sense, by George M. Searle, “Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle; Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in the Catholic University of America and Director of the Observatory”. George Searle was an astronomer with the Harvard Observatory who converted to Catholicism, entered the priesthood, and then continued his scientific work at the Catholic University of America. Fr. Searle was eventually elected superior-general of the Paulists, serving from 1904 to 1910. Plain Facts was written for a non-Catholic audience, in a time when the status of Catholics and the Catholic church in the USA was different from today. Fr. Searle states in the introduction to Plain Facts that the book is—
addressed principally to what are commonly called Bible Christians, who form the majority of our Protestant population, in order to show them that the Catholic religion, while thoroughly in accordance with Scripture and based on it, also agrees with reason and common sense, and has nothing to fear from the discoveries or legitimate conclusions of science; that having the historical presumption in its favor, it also in every other way satisfies the demands of the intellect, as well as the needs of the soul.
The chapter on science and the church is noteworthy, both because of the material Fr. Searle covers and because of Fr. Searle’s background and training as an astronomer, convert, and priest. Fr. Searle’s main emphasis is to distinguish between actual scientific work itself as opposed to the use of science as an argument against religion. He writes:
[T]he Church has no quarrel with genuine science, with that which is legitimately directed by truly scientific methods to the attainment of truth. She cannot have such a quarrel; for she believes in the truth of what she preaches, and she knows, what all having the use of reason must know, that truth cannot contradict truth….
Nor does she prohibit any Catholics who are competent to undertake scientific investigation from doing so. She places absolutely no obstacle in the way of their penetrating into all the facts of nature as it stands, or of their considering the probable indications as to its past history, or of their weighing actual historical testimony….
[N]o Catholic scientist well instructed in his religion finds anything in religion or science which tempts him to give up either….
The scientific enemies of religion… know that if they could beat down or really disprove one tenet of the Catholic Church, the whole structure would go to pieces. But let me tell you that there is no danger of that; we are not at all alarmed. The progress of science may disquiet you and make you think Christianity is untenable; that the head must abandon it, letting it take its refuge in the heart. But we are not disquieted; we know that it has never interfered with any of the dogmas of our faith, and that it never will; and if you were Catholics, you would know the same; you would know that the Catholic religion will always satisfy the requiraements of the intellect, as well as the cravings and aspirations of the soul.
Click here to access this work courtesy of Google Books.
Click here to access this work courtesy of Archive.org.
Astronomy on the Frontier
Article (blog post)- 1200 words
- General audiences
Christopher Graney writes on The Catholic Astronomer blog about the first bishop of Vincennes, Indiana, Simon Guillaume Gabriel Bruté de Rémur (1779-1839), and his library. The library contained a significant collection of works on science, which Bishop Bruté hauled all the way to the American frontier from France. Graney writes:
It turns out Bruté had been a top-notch student of science—one of the best students in his class at the medical school in Paris. So of course his library would include quite a bit of material on a variety of sciences, including astronomy. Still, Indiana was being settled at the time, and was pretty rough country: the land of Abraham Lincoln’s youth…; a land that had only become a state twenty years earlier; a land from which the Potowatami Indians were being forcibly evicted while Bruté was bishop, passing only a hundred miles to the north on a “Trail of Death.” Was it really worth the trouble and cost to haul crates of science books to this country, all for a church library? especially for a guy who apparently owned so little other stuff of worth that a decent set of clothes had to be borrowed for his burial! Obviously, in the opinion of the first bishop of Vincennes, it was indeed worth it (and worth it to have some up-to-date astronomy books, too)…. It is worth knowing that Bishop Simon Guillaume Gabriel Bruté de Rémur cared about having science books, including astronomy books, in the rough-and-tumble country of 1830’s Indiana. In the U.S.A., at least, we tend to value a little more those things our forebears valued.
The Vatican Observatory (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1901)
Article (encyclopedia entry)- 2 pages
- General audiences
The entry for the Vatican Observatory in the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia. The entry was written by J. G. Hagen, S. J., director of the Observatory at that time. From the article:
The Vatican Observatory now bears the official title, “Specola Astronomica Vaticana”. To understand its history it is necessary to remark that the designations osservatorio or specola are not restricted to astronomy, but may mean any elevated locality from which aerial phenomena are observed. From this point of view the history of the Specola Vaticana has passed through four successive stages….
Click here to access this article via Google Books.
The Total Solar Eclipse of July 29th, 1878
Article- 13 pages
- High school level and above
This article by J. M. Degni, S. J. from the 1878 American Catholic Quarterly Review provides an interesting look at a scientific article in a nineteenth-century Catholic periodical. “The Total Solar Eclipse” follows articles on the position of the Blessed Virgin in Catholic theology, Sir Thomas More, Catholic poetry, and Pope Sixtus V, among others. It features significant discussion of topics in astronomy such as spectroscopy and the work of Fr. Angelo Secchi. It also features a table of numerical data on temperature and humidity during the eclipse, and a full-page sketch of the eclipse made by Fr. Benedict Sestini. This sketch is also on the cover of the magazine. Degni concludes, “Many minor details, revealed by the spectroscope, the polariscope, and other instruments of observation, we must omit for brevity’s sake…. we must patiently await the full examination and comparison of the various observations taken on the 29th before the truth can be reached on this and many other points open to discussion. Meanwhile, we confidently assert that the observations made on the late eclipse will be found to have materially augmented our knowledge regarding the central orb of the solar system.”
Click here for the article, courtesy of Google Books.
St. Athanasius – The Harmony of the Universe: the Work of the Logos, Who Acts as a Musician
Book excerpt- 1300 words
- Level: university
An excerpt from Against the Heathen (Contra Gentes), by Athanasius of Alexandria. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. Athanasius writes:
[B]y one and the same act of will He moves all things simultaneously, and not at intervals, but all collectively, both straight and curved, things above and beneath and intermediate, wet, cold, warm, seen and invisible, and orders them according to their several nature. For simultaneously at His single nod what is straight moves as straight, what is curved also, and what is intermediate, follows its own movement; what is warm receives warmth, what is dry dryness, and all things according to their several nature are quickened and organised by Him, and He produces as the result a marvellous and truly divine harmony.
And for so great a matter to be understood by an example, let what we are describing be compared to a great chorus. As then the chorus is composed of different people, children, women again, and old men, and those who are still young, and, when one, namely the conductor, gives the sign, each utters sound according to his nature and power, the man as a man, the child as a child, the old man as an old man, and the young man as a young man, while all make up a single harmony.
Click here for Athanasius’s commentary, from Inters.org.
Couldn’t God have designed a gentler universe?
Mt. Etna, November 16, 2013. Credit: AP Photo/Carmelo Imbesi
- Article
- 2200 words
- Level: all audiences
This article (by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., of the Vatican Observatory) on natural evil is taken from the Jesuit web site Thinking Faith.
Click here to view this article at Thinking Faith.
[Click here to download PDF]
Couldnt-God
Anatomy of a fall: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the story of g
- Article (PDF)
- 5 pages
- High school level and up
The first person to conduct precise gravity experiments was Fr. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, S. J. in the early seventeenth century. This 2012 article from the magazine Physics Today discusses Fr. Riccioli’s experiments regarding how gravity works and what was the acceleration due to gravity (now known as ‘g’).
Click here for a the article in PDF format (from Physics Today).
From the article:
Riccioli set a fine example for all the free-fall experiments that would follow. He was thorough. He provided an extensive description of his experimental procedure. He gathered data of sufficient quality to assess accurately the model in question.
But Riccioli’s work is also a standard of scientific integrity: He had set out expecting to disprove Galileo, but even when his experiments vindicated Galileo, he made a point of promptly sharing the news with an interested colleague. His attitude, like his experiment, was that of a fine scientist.
The New Physics and the Old Metaphysics (The Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina)
- Video
- 55 minutes
- Level: university
The 2012 Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina. A presentation by Br Guy Consomagno on how advances in modern physics work with traditional metaphysics. God is not one force among many, to be invoked to explain evolution or the big bang, but the author of the universe that allows evolution or the big bang to occur.
Jesuit Science
- Article and Video
- 750 words (article), 1 hour (video)
- General audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, discusses Jesuits and their many contributions to science in an article and in a talk (on video). Br. Consolmagno notes:
A Jesuit scientist, supported by the order, is often not tied to a three-year funding cycle or six-year tenure review. Thus we have the time – it may take decades – to catalogue double stars, seismic velocities, or patterns in climate or terrestrial magnetic fields. Jesuits, for instance, invented the basic taxonomy of the plants of India. But this sort of science often meant that their work was unappreciated by their immediate peers. Famously in the 19th century the Whig historian and politician Thomas Macaulay sneered that the Jesuits “appear to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation” and that being a Jesuit “has a tendency to suffocate, rather than to develop, original genius.”
The Vatican Observatory
- Video
- 5 minutes
- Level: all audiences
A short video from the Vatican Observatory Foundation about the history and work of the Vatican Observatory, featuring interviews with members of the Observatory and views of their telescopes in Arizona and Rome.
Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer – Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ
- Video
- One hour
- Level: all audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, gave this talk at the SETI Institute on February 22, 2013
No scientist is a Spock-like android; a scientist’s work is as intuitive, and just as full of human foibles, as a painting, a symphony, or a prayer. But most of us don’t have the opportunity (or training) to reflect on the human dimensions of our work. Br. Guy Consolmagno does; he is both a Jesuit brother and a planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory, splitting his time between the meteorite collection in Rome (which he curates) and the Vatican telescope in Arizona. Thanks to his Vatican connections, his work has sent him around the world several times to dozens of countries and every continent (including a meteorite hunting expedition to Antarctica). In this talk he will share some of those adventures, and reflect on the larger meaning of our common experience as scientists… not only what we do, but why we do it.
Fr. Angelo Secchi S.J., Jesuit Astrophysicist
- Video
- 17 minutes
- General Audiences
Fr. Angelo Secchi, S.J., father of astrophysics, is one of the greatest astronomers you have never heard of. Discover why, and find out about his contributions to stellar spectroscopy, solar physics, terrestrial magnetism, meteorology, and oceanography. This video features contributions from Ileana Chinnici, Aldo Altamore, Fr. Matteo Galaverni, and Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno. It was produced by Br. Bob Macke, S.J. of the Vatican Observatory.
From MIT to Specola Vaticana: Guy Consolmagno at TEDx via Della Conciliazione
- Video
- 17 minutes
- Level: all audiences
Brother Guy Consolmagno weaves stories about science and seeing things in new ways.
From TEDx YouTube:
Brother Guy Consolmagno is a Planetary Scientist at the Vatican Observatory. He is the curator of the Vatican meteorite collection, which is one of the largest in the world. He earned a degree from MIT and did post-doctorate work at MIT and the Harvard College Observatory. When he was 29, he joined the Peace Corps in Kenya. There, he taught suffering people about astronomy. He discovered that the desire for scientific knowledge is not limited to educated westerners, but is original and alive in the poor and uneducated. In this way, he discovered that astronomy belongs to us all. In 1992, he became a Jesuit Brother. In 2000, he was honored by the International Astronomical Union for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of “Asteroid 4597 Consolmagno”.
IHMC STEM Talk, Conversation with Br Consolmagno
Audio- One hour
- Level: all audiences
STEM Talk is podcast produced by the IHMC (a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System) that features “Conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world of science and technology”. In this episode, co-host Tom Jones interviews Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory, about his life-long journey to understand the universe and the role of faith in that pursuit. Jones is a former NASA astronaut who shares Br. Guy’s love of astronomy and who also studies under the same thesis advisor at MIT, John Lewis.
Click here to access the audio and a summary of the topics discussed from IHMC.
On Being with Krista Tippett: Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God
- Audio
- One hour
- Level: all audiences
An interview with two Vatican Observatory astronomers from the radio show On Being with Krista Tippett: “Guy Consolmagno and George Coyne—Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God”.
More than 30 objects on the moon are named after the Jesuits who mapped it. A Jesuit was one of the founders of modern astrophysics. And four Jesuits in history, including Ignatius of Loyola, have had asteroids named after them – Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father George Coyne being the two living men with this distinction. In a conversation filled with friendship and laughter, and in honor of the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S., we experience the spacious way they think about science, the universe, and the love of God.
Click here for the audio and a transcript of the interview from “On Being”.
The Pope and the Comet
- Article
- 4 pages
- General audiences
This brief article (published in 1908 in Popular Astronomy) by Fr. William F. Rigge, S. J., an astronomer at Creighton University, debunks the story that Pope Callixtus III invoked his papal authority against Halley’s comet. Rigge writes that “it seems that no article can be written on Halley’s comet without bringing in the oft-told story of the bull which Pope Callixtus III so ineffectually launched against it….” Rigge cites several pieces of evidence against this story, the strongest being that not that many documents were produced during the short papacy of Callixtus III, and Fr. Rigge was able to read them all. “It was an easy task for me to read all the documents of this pope,” he writes, “and I can attest from my own personal knowledge that not only is there no bull against or concerning a comet, there is not even a paragraph, nor a phrase, nor a word, which might be construed to refer to a comet.” Today the story is generally recognized as a myth, but as recently as 1997 a NASA news release about comet Hale-Bopp noted that “Pope Callixtus III excommunicated Halley’s Comet in 1456 as an ‘instrument of the devil’…”
RiggeSJPopeComet
Click here to access this article as printed in Popular Astronomy (courtesy of Google Books).
Anatomy of a fall: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the story of g
- Article (PDF)
- 5 pages
- High school level and up
The first person to conduct precise gravity experiments was Fr. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, S. J. in the early seventeenth century. This 2012 article from the magazine Physics Today discusses Fr. Riccioli’s experiments regarding how gravity works and what was the acceleration due to gravity (now known as ‘g’).
Click here for a the article in PDF format (from Physics Today).
From the article:
Riccioli set a fine example for all the free-fall experiments that would follow. He was thorough. He provided an extensive description of his experimental procedure. He gathered data of sufficient quality to assess accurately the model in question.
But Riccioli’s work is also a standard of scientific integrity: He had set out expecting to disprove Galileo, but even when his experiments vindicated Galileo, he made a point of promptly sharing the news with an interested colleague. His attitude, like his experiment, was that of a fine scientist.
Telescopes: Through the Looking Glass
Book- 234 pages
- General audiences
This book by Marvin Bolt was published in 2009, the year of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of the telescope. It provides a readable history of the telescope by way of highlighting items that are on exhibit in the “Telescopes: Through the Looking Glass” exhibit at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Scattered throughout this beautifully illustrated book can be found references to the works of various clerics, such as Bartholomaeus Anglicus (1203-1274), Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), Francesco Bianchini (1662-1729), and others. Those planning a visit to the Adler might enjoy a look through this book in advance.
From the publisher, Adler Planetarium:
Through the Looking Glass celebrates the 400th anniversary of the telescope and the 2009 International Year of Astronomy. This exhibition catalogue focuses on ninety-nine artifacts from the Adler Planetarium’s world-class collection of historic telescopes. From the simple lenses of the world’s earliest telescopes 400 years ago to the complex computer-driven mirrors of current telescopes, these tools have gathered information about our nearest astronomical neighbors and the most distant objects in the universe. Through the Looking Glass examines this story through select rare books, works on paper, telescopes, and other instruments from the Adler Planetarium’s collection. Introductory paragraphs provide background information for each of four time periods, with each section featuring artifact entries that describe each object’s place in the fascinating history of the telescope. Telescope-makers intended for their work to be looked at as well as looked through. With this catalogue, readers can enjoy the craftsmanship of telescope-making over the centuries, and catch a glimpse of their importance and of the significant discoveries they enabled.
Click here for a preview of Telescopes: Through the Looking Glass.
Adler Planetarium website for the exhibit entitled “Telescopes: Through the Looking Glass”—click here.
Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion
- Book
- 320 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2009 book, edited by Ronald Numbers, contains much that will be of interest to many readers. From the publisher, Harvard University Press:
If we want nonscientists and opinion-makers in the press, the lab, and the pulpit to take a fresh look at the relationship between science and religion, Ronald L. Numbers suggests that we must first dispense with the hoary myths that have masqueraded too long as historical truths. Until about the 1970s, the dominant narrative in the history of science had long been that of science triumphant, and science at war with religion. But a new generation of historians both of science and of the church began to examine episodes in the history of science and religion through the values and knowledge of the actors themselves. Now Ronald Numbers has recruited the leading scholars in this new history of science to puncture the myths, from Galileo’s incarceration to Darwin’s deathbed conversion to Einstein’s belief in a personal God who “didn’t play dice with the universe.” The picture of science and religion at each other’s throats persists in mainstream media and scholarly journals, but each chapter in Galileo Goes to Jail shows how much we have to gain by seeing beyond the myths.
Click here for more information from the publisher.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
Mathematical Disquisitions – The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo
Book- 176 pages
- High school level and above
This 2017 book by Christopher M. Graney is the first complete English translation of an astronomical text written by scientists who stood opposite Galileo in the debate on the question of Earth’s motion. Galileo painted a very unfavorable portrait of Mathematical Disquisitions and its Jesuit authors, but the book itself turns out to be a competent scientific work and not much like Galileo’s portrayal of it.
From the publisher, the University of Notre Dame Press:
Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo offers a new English translation of the 1614 Disquisitiones Mathematicae, which Johann Georg Locher wrote under the guidance of the German Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner. The booklet, an anti-Copernican astronomical work, is of interest in large part because Galileo Galilei, who came into conflict with Scheiner over the discovery of sunspots, devoted numerous pages within his famous 1632 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems—Ptolemaic and Copernican to ridiculing Disquisitiones. The brief text (the original was approximately one hundred pages) is heavily illustrated with dozens of original figures, making it an accessible example of “geocentric astronomy in the wake of the telescope.”
The treatise provides valuable insight into the astronomical debates of the seventeenth century, a time when the question of the Earth’s motion was still very much in flux. Whereas Galileo’s works are readily available, there are far fewer translations of works arguing the other side. Christopher Graney’s translation focuses on the mathematical and astronomical core of Locher’s work and is suitable for undergraduate students in courses on the history of science, philosophy of science, astronomy, and physics.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
The Vatican observatory, Castel Gandolfo: 80th anniversary celebration
Pope Francis and participants at the symposium that was the genesis for this book, September 18, 2015.
- Book
- 265 pages
- University level
This book was edited by Vatican Observatory astronomers Gabriele Gionti, S. J., and Jean-Baptiste Kikwaya Eluo, S.J., and published in 2018 by Springer. It includes articles on a variety of topics related to the Vatican Observatory, its history, and the work of its astronomers. These topics include the Leap Second Debate, a historical telescope, cosmology, near Earth objects, outreach to the popular press, philosophy, stellar and galactic astronomy, and more. From the publisher:
This book presents contributions from an internal symposium [September 2015] organized to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Specola Vaticana, or Vatican Observatory, in the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo. The aim is to provide an overview of the scientific and cultural work being undertaken at the Observatory today and to describe the outcomes of important recent investigations. The contents cover interesting topics in a variety of areas, including planetary science and instrumentation, stellar evolution and stars, galaxies, cosmology, quantum gravity, the history of astronomy, and interactions between science, philosophy, and theology.
On September 29, 1935, Pope Pius XI officially inaugurated the new headquarters of the Specola Vaticana at Castel Gandolfo. With new telescopes, a new astrophysical laboratory for spectrochemical analysis, and a young staff comprising Jesuit scientists, this inauguration marked the beginning of an intense period of scientific achievements at the Observatory. This anniversary book, featuring contributions from members of the current Observatory staff and adjunct scholars, will appeal to all with an interest in the history of the Specola Vaticana and its significance for astronomy.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
Click here for information from the publisher, Springer.
The Vatican Observatory: In The Service of Nine Popes
- Book (link to publisher)
- 429 pages
- Level: high school and above
This book, written in Italian by Sabino Maffeo, S. J. and translated by George V. Coyne, S. J. (both of the Vatican Observatory), gives the history of the founding and development of the Vatican Observatory. From the web site of the current publisher, University of Notre Dame Press:
The Vatican Observatory: In the Service of Nine Popes records the history of the Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana). It was originally published in 1991 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the observatory by Pope Leo XIII. This revised edition brings together many facts hidden in archival material, correspondence, previous publications on the observatory’s history, as well as fresh material derived from interviews. Of particular interest is new research on the difficult period in the observatory’s history as it moved from an institute struggling to establish research programs to a true astronomical observatory.
The Vatican Observatory: In the Service of Nine Popes presents the most complete written history of the Vatican Observatory.
Click here for a version of the full text of this book from NASA-ADS.
The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaître, Einstein and the Birth of Modern Cosmology
Book- 262 pages
- University level
This 2005 book by John Farrell (published by Thunder’s Mouth Press/Avalon Publishing Group) provides an in-depth and at at times technical discussion of the life and work of Fr. Georges Lemaître, the Belgian priest who used the ideas of Albert Einstein to developed what is now known as the “Big Bang Theory”—the scientific idea that the universe had a beginning on a “day without yesterday”. Among his other accomplishments, Fr. Lemaître served as president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 1960 until his death in 1966.
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From the dust jacket of The Day Without Yesterday:
Sometimes our understanding of our universe is given a huge boost by one insightful thinker. Such a boost came in the first half of the twentieth century, when an obscure Belgian priest put his mind to deciphering the nature of the cosmos. Is the universe evolving to some unforeseen end, or is it static, as the Greeks believed? The debate has preoccupied thinkers from Heraclitus to the author of the Upanishads, from the Mayans to Einstein. The Day Without Yesterday covers the modern history of an evolving universe, and how Georges Lemaître convinced a generation of thinkers to embrace the notion of cosmic expansion and the theory that this expansion could be traced backward to the cosmic origins, a starting point for space and time that Lemaître called “the day without yesterday.” Lemaître’s skill with mathematics and the equations of relativity enabled him to think much more broadly about cosmology than anyone else at the time, including Einstein. Lemaître proposed the expanding model of the universe to Einstein, who rejected it. Had Einstein followed Lemaître’s thinking, he could have predicted the expansion of the universe more than a decade before it was actually discovered.
Also from The Day Without Yesterday:
[B]y the time Lemaitre had come to the fore with his expanding model of the universe, the opposition between science and religion had become fodder for journalists. And it’s interesting, for this reason, to go back to the early interviews with Lemaitre when he returned to California in 1933 and how he responded to the already typical question – just how did a priest-physicist reconcile his faith with his science?
The writers of the Bible were illuminated more or less – some more than others – on the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or as ignorant as their generation. Hence it is utterly unimportant that errors of historic or scientific fact should be found in the Bible, especially if errors relate to events that were not directly observed by those who wrote about them.
The idea that because they were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all.
You can already detect a note of impatience with Lemaitre’s answer, as in, Why should this be a question? But it was.
The Church opposed to Science
Fr. George M. Searle
- Article (book chapter)
- 11 pages
- High school level and above
This is a chapter from an 1895 book entitled Plain Facts for Fair Minds: An Appeal to Candor and Common Sense, by George M. Searle, “Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle; Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in the Catholic University of America and Director of the Observatory”. George Searle was an astronomer with the Harvard Observatory who converted to Catholicism, entered the priesthood, and then continued his scientific work at the Catholic University of America. Fr. Searle was eventually elected superior-general of the Paulists, serving from 1904 to 1910. Plain Facts was written for a non-Catholic audience, in a time when the status of Catholics and the Catholic church in the USA was different from today. Fr. Searle states in the introduction to Plain Facts that the book is—
addressed principally to what are commonly called Bible Christians, who form the majority of our Protestant population, in order to show them that the Catholic religion, while thoroughly in accordance with Scripture and based on it, also agrees with reason and common sense, and has nothing to fear from the discoveries or legitimate conclusions of science; that having the historical presumption in its favor, it also in every other way satisfies the demands of the intellect, as well as the needs of the soul.
The chapter on science and the church is noteworthy, both because of the material Fr. Searle covers and because of Fr. Searle’s background and training as an astronomer, convert, and priest. Fr. Searle’s main emphasis is to distinguish between actual scientific work itself as opposed to the use of science as an argument against religion. He writes:
[T]he Church has no quarrel with genuine science, with that which is legitimately directed by truly scientific methods to the attainment of truth. She cannot have such a quarrel; for she believes in the truth of what she preaches, and she knows, what all having the use of reason must know, that truth cannot contradict truth….
Nor does she prohibit any Catholics who are competent to undertake scientific investigation from doing so. She places absolutely no obstacle in the way of their penetrating into all the facts of nature as it stands, or of their considering the probable indications as to its past history, or of their weighing actual historical testimony….
[N]o Catholic scientist well instructed in his religion finds anything in religion or science which tempts him to give up either….
The scientific enemies of religion… know that if they could beat down or really disprove one tenet of the Catholic Church, the whole structure would go to pieces. But let me tell you that there is no danger of that; we are not at all alarmed. The progress of science may disquiet you and make you think Christianity is untenable; that the head must abandon it, letting it take its refuge in the heart. But we are not disquieted; we know that it has never interfered with any of the dogmas of our faith, and that it never will; and if you were Catholics, you would know the same; you would know that the Catholic religion will always satisfy the requiraements of the intellect, as well as the cravings and aspirations of the soul.
Click here to access this work courtesy of Google Books.
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