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
- High school level 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 (5 MB)
- General Audience
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.
Religion and Science: Roman Catholicism
- Encyclopedia article
- 6 pages
- High school level and above
An article entitle “Christianity, Roman Catholic, Issues in Science and Religion” in the Encyclopedia Of Science And Religion. This article was written by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006). Coyne writes:
The most distinctive features of Roman Catholicism that influence the religion-science dialogue are its hierarchical and authoritative structure and its emphasis upon the rational foundations for religious belief. Many of the divisions that have occurred within Christianity in the course of history have their origins in one or both of these characteristics of Roman Catholicism. The history of the interaction within Roman Catholicism between science and religion has been dominated by its hierarchical structure. On the other hand the insistence on reason as fundamental to the relationship of human beings to the universe and, therefore, to the creator of the universe has played an important role in the birth of modern science and provides a platform for the dialogue between the belief system of Roman Catholicism and other disciplines, especially science.
Click here for the full article from The Internet Archive.
Deep-dish astronomy: First light for VATT
- Article
- 150 words
- General audiences
Below is the text of a “News Notes” article from Sky & Telescope Magazine, July 1995, announcing the first use of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, or VATT:
Click here to access this article via Ebscohost (available in many libraries).
Click here to access this article via Archive.org.
Deep-dish astronomy: First light for VATT
Observing is now under way at the new Mount Graham International Observatory in Arizona. At the end of January, Richard P. Boyle, S.J. (Vatican Observatory) and Austin B. Tomaney (Columbia University) took the first visible-light images with the 1.8-meter Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT). First among the $3-million instrument’s noteworthy attributes is its deep, “salad-bowl” f/1.0 primary mirror (S&T: March 1994, page 12). It was one of the first to be formed by spin-casting techniques developed at the University of Arizona. Such a fast primary requires the secondary to be positioned with micron precision to achieve proper focus. These inaugural images of the Crab Nebula in Taurus (top) and globular cluster M3 in Canes Venatici (bottom) are 300-second and 100-second exposures, respectively. Each has an 11-arcminute field of view. Vatican astronomers hope to achieve subarcsecond resolution by tilting the secondary mirror to compensate for atmospheric turbulence. Courtesy Richard P. Boyle, S.J.
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).
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.
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….
Francis – Address to Participants in the Summer Course of the Vatican Observatory
Article (Papal Address)- 560 words
- General audiences
In 2014 Pope Francis addressed the participants in the Vatican Observatory’s summer school. This article 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. Pope Francis notes:
Here too we see a further reason for the Church’s commitment to dialogue with the sciences on the basis of the light provided by faith: it is her conviction that faith is capable of both expanding and enriching the horizons of reason. In this dialogue, the Church rejoices in the marvelous progress of science, seeing it as a sign of the enormous God-given potential of the human mind, even as a mother rejoices and is rightly proud as her children grow “in wisdom, and age and grace” (Lk 2:52).
Click here for this material from Inters.org.
Click here for this material from the Vatican web page.
Finding God in the Cosmos: An Interview with a Vatican Astronomer
Article- 1700 words
- General 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 work as a scientist.
Click here to access this article courtesy of America.
Ciencia y fe: el origen del universo. Georges Lemaître: el padre del big-bang
- Article
- 3000 words
- High school level and above
Part of a body of work produced by the Grupo Ciencia, Razón y Fe at Universidad de Navarra, this article by Mariano Artigas provides an introduction to Fr. Georges Lemaître, “el padre del big-bang”. Artigas writes:
Fr. Georges Lemaître
Lemaître dejó clara constancia de sus ideas sobre las relaciones entre ciencia y fe. Uno de sus textos resulta especialmente esclarecedor: «El científico cristiano debe dominar y aplicar con sagacidad la técnica especial adecuada a su problema. Tiene los mismos medios que su colega no creyente. También tiene la misma libertad de espíritu, al menos si la idea que se hace de las verdades religiosas está a la altura de su formación científica. Sabe que todo ha sido hecho por Dios, pero sabe también que Dios no sustituye a sus creaturas. La actividad divina omnipresente se encuentra por doquier esencialmente oculta. Nunca se podrá reducir el Ser supremo a una hipótesis científica. La revelación divina no nos ha enseñado lo que éramos capaces de descubrir por nosotros mismos, al menos cuando esas verdades naturales no son indispensables para comprender la verdad sobrenatural. Por tanto, el científico cristiano va hacia adelante libremente, con la seguridad de que su investigación no puede entrar en conflicto con su fe. Incluso quizá tiene una cierta ventaja sobre su colega no creyente; en efecto, ambos se esfuerzan por descifrar la múltiple complejidad de la naturaleza en la que se encuentran sobrepuestas y confundidas las diversas etapas de la larga evolución del mundo, pero el creyente tiene la ventaja de saber que el enigma tiene solución, que la escritura subyacente es al fin y al cabo la obra de un Ser inteligente, y que por tanto el problema que plantea la naturaleza puede ser resuelto y su dificultad está sin duda proporcionada a la capacidad presente y futura de la humanidad. Probablemente esto no le proporcionará nuevos recursos para su investigación, pero contribuirá a fomentar en él ese sano optimismo sin el cual no se puede mantener durante largo tiempo un esfuerzo sostenido. En cierto sentido, el científico prescinde de su fe en su trabajo, no porque esa fe pudiera entorpecer su investigación, sino porque no se relaciona directamente con su actividad científica». Estas palabras, pronunciadas el 10 de septiembre de 1936 en un Congreso celebrado en Malinas, sintetizan nítidamente la compatibilidad entre la ciencia y la fe, en un mutuo respeto que evita indebidas interferencias, y a la vez muestran el estímulo que la fe proporciona al científico cristiano para avanzar en su arduo trabajo.
Click here to access this article from Grupo Ciencia, Razón y Fe/Universidad de Navarra.
The New Physics and the Old Metaphysics (The Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina)
- Video
- 55 minutes
- University level
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.
The Vatican Observatory
- Video
- 5 minutes
- General audience
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.
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.”
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
- General audience
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.
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.
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
- High school level 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.
The Vatican Observatory: In The Service of Nine Popes
- Book (link to publisher)
- 429 pages
- General audience
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.
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 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.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
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 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.