Tag Archives: Br. Guy Consolmagno

The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video 1 hour talk, with 45 minutes more of Q&A Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory delivered a lecture on The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design at the University of Illinois on March 7th, 2013. The event was hosted by the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois. An extensive Q&A followed with Greg Moorehouse; the sound in that part is not particularly clear, unfortunately. The main point of the lecture is that Creation from Nothing is different from the Big Bang, and different from what Hawking was talking about.    

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The Galileo Affair: Context and Controversy

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video 1 hour 20 minutes (includes 15 minutes Q&A) Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, delivered “The Galileo Affair: Context and Controversy” in the University at Albany Lecture Center. on November 19, 2014. through the sponsorship of the associated Departments of Physics and Philosophy and College of Arts & Sciences at the University at Albany, State University of New York.  

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Talk: God’s Mechanics: the Religious Life of Techies

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video One hour plus Q&A Level: all audiences How does religion work in a society shaped by science and technology? How do scientists and engineers practice their religions? How in particular does a Jesuit brother, and an MIT graduate with a PhD in planetary science, make sense of his Catholicism? In this 2009 talk, “God’s Mechanics,” based on his book of the same name, Br. Guy Consolmagno examines the personal religious life and theology of scientists and engineers — “Techies” — based on conversations with Techies in California’s Silicon Valley and a first-person confession from a Jesuit scientist and astronomer at the Vatican Observatory. This lecture is part of the IHMC lecture series.  The IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System  

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Meaning: Exploring the Big Questions of the Cosmos with a Vatican Scientist

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Videos series 12 twenty five minute programs, approx. 6 hours total Level: all audiences A series of lectures by Br. Guy Consolmagno, Director of the Vatican Observatory.  From the publisher, Now You Know Media: Explore the big questions of science and religion with a Jesuit astronomer. While science and religion have often been seen as contradictory forces, in reality they complement each other. Indeed, Catholics have often been at the forefront of scientific discovery; the Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel innovated the study of genetics, and the Jesuit Georges Lemaître first proposed the Big Bang Theory. More recently, Pope Francis issued Laudato Si, an encyclical that addresses global warming. Now, you can join a leading Catholic scientist in examining the most vital questions about the universe. Your guide, Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J., an astronomer and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, deals with big things—stars, galaxies, and unfathomable distances—but that’s not the kind of “bigness” that you will explore here. Instead, … Continue reading →

What is Life?

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

One hour video of opening talk at the 2015 University of Arizona annual science lecture series. Throughout history, our definition of ‘life’ reflects our assumptions about how the Universe works – and why we ask the question. The ways different human cultures, ancient and current, have talked about life provide some sense of how we have defined life, and illustrate the aspects of life that fascinate us. Many cultures used life as an analog to explain the movement of winds and currents, or the motions of the planets. Today we use those mechanical systems as analogs for life. Ultimately, we may not really know what life is until we have discovered more than one independent example of it on places other than Earth – we need many diverse examples before we can generalize. But without a definition of what we’re looking for, and why we’re looking, we may have a hard time recognizing life when we find it.

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Talking science and God with Science Magazine

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

This link to an interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno explores some of the assumptions behind the question of baptism and Ets.

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Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video 11 minutes Level: all audiences What is Dark Energy? What is Dark Matter? Hear what Br. Guy Consolmagno (of the Vatican Observatory) and Dr. Brenda Frye (of The University of Arizona) have to say in this video from the Vatican Observatory Foundation. Click here for other videos from the Vatican Observatory Foundation.  

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God and Science, Under the Stars (Interview with Br. Consolmagno)

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 1500 words Level: all audiences A CBC interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory.  From the CBC: Q & A with Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno Guy Consolmagno is an astronomer and planetary scientist with degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona. He is also a Jesuit Brother, dividing his time between the Vatican observatory in Arizona and Castel Gandolfo, Italy, where he is curator of the Vatican meteorite collection — one of the largest in the world. Brother Consolmagno is steeped in scientific theory, but uses God to account for what can’t be accounted for through science, as a glue that holds together the equations of the universe. Brother Consolmagno is steeped in scientific theory, but uses God to account for what can’t be accounted for through science, as a glue that holds together the equations of the universe. He is also the author of God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make … Continue reading →

Discarded Worlds: Astronomical Ideas that Were Almost Correct

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video 1 hours Level: all audiences This is a video from IHMC (IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System) of a 2012 talk by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., of the Vatican Observatory. The following description is from IHMC: Astronomy is more than just observing; it’s making sense of those observations. A good theorist needs a good imagination…and no fear of being wrong. Aryabaha in ancient India and Ptolemy in ancient Rome, the medieval bishops Oresme and Cusa, the 19th century astronomers Schiaparelli and Pickering, all rose to the challenge; and they were all almost correct. Which is to say, they were wrong… sometimes hilariously, sometimes heartbreakingly so. What lessons can we take from these discarded images?  

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