Interview: Through the Eyes of Vatican Observatory: Where Science Meets Faith!

Does science meet religion? What’s a better way than looking through a telescope? Way back in 1891, in order to counteract the longstanding accusations of a hostility of the Church towards science, Pope Leo XIII formally re-founded the Specola Vaticana (Vatican Observatory). Later Pope Pius XI provided a new location for the Observatory at the Papal Summer Residence at Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills. The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical institutes in the world.

For Indian Catholic Matters and Tom Thomas, it is indeed a rare privilege to have an opportunity to interact with Bro Guy Consolmagno, SJ, President, the Vatican Observatory — an astronomer to three Popes; who incidentally has an asteroid named after him — and is a renowned publisher of numerous books and scientific articles. More importantly, he’s working at the intersection of science and faith. Excerpts from the interview:

What led you into the field of astronomy and then onto religion? Both the streams seem to be very different as religion particularly our Catholic Religion views God as the Creator of everything (as mentioned right from the First book in the Bible – Genesis) while Science tries to find a rational explanation for everything. Can you please explain your unique path for us?

This is not a unique path, nor even very unusual. My religion tells me God created the universe; my science tells me how He did it. But even more, my religion tells me that the God who created this universe was supernatural, not a nature god; that He created a universe that was orderly and understandable; and that this universe is good. You must believe all of those things before you can do science. If the universe is at the whim of nature gods then there would be no laws of nature to discover. If it were not good, then there would be no reason to dedicate our lives to study it.

And this is not unusual. Read your history and you will find that so many scientists were inspired to study the universe directly by their religion — Ampere and Volta, for whom “amps” and “volts” are named; Gregor Mendel, who discovered the laws of inheritance; George Lemaître, who devised the Big Bang Theory.

Others who may not think of themselves as religious nonetheless speak of the beauty and order and elegance that causes them to love nature and what to get to know it better. And all of us are dedicated absolutely to Truth, even when it means admitting when we are wrong. What is more religious than that?

What is it like to be the Pope’s astronomer?  In your opinion, how supportive is the Holy Father on Astronomy?

There are two remarkable differences between being an astronomer at a university or national lab and being an astronomer for the Pope. The first is the motivation behind the work. What gets you up in the morning to do your work? Too often it was the case for me, before I entered the Jesuits, that I was working for my own glory, or for a better position, or just for a salary. I had lost the enthusiasm for the work itself. The second is related to the first: back then I had to choose the projects I work on based worries about what work can get government grants on a three year funding cycle. But at the Vatican, I can choose the projects that I actually find interesting; and I can pursue them for as long as it takes, even if it takes many years to bring them to completion.

At the Vatican, the motivation for my work ultimately is to bring glory to God the Creator, not to bring glory to myself. As a result, much of the work we do at the Observatory are long-term projects that are widely used in our field, such as surveys of spectra or surveys of meteorite properties. No one ever got a Nobel Prize for this work, but we aren’t doing the work for prizes. The data we collect will be used by our colleagues for many years to come, long after flashier theories are long forgotten.

Every Pope has supported our astronomy very strongly, each in his own way. I am told that Pope Pius XII was an amateur astronomer; he came from a wealthy noble Italian family and used part of his family fortune to purchase a modern telescope for the observatory in the 1950s. His successor, Pope John XIII, didn’t follow the astronomy as closely but during his summer vacations in the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo where our telescopes were located he would visit the astronomers and night and bring them a bottle of wine!

I have worked for three popes, from Saint John Paul II to Benedict XVI to Francis, and they have all been very supportive. They are all academics (two of them were university professors) so they understand the nature of our work.

Can you explain to us some of the history between the Vatican observatory and the important scientific discoveries made? What is the position of the Church over the years to science and the support received by Vatican over the years. What are the facilities of the Vatican observatory, location, etc? Can you share some details of the annual budget, faculty, important publications/research, etc.  if possible.

We publish a summary of our work every year in an Annual Report, which is distributed to officials in the Vatican, and to astronomical research centers around the world. Anyone can find these reports on-line, at our web site.

Typically, these reports run to more than 60 pages every year. We are very busy! For example, in 2020 we reported on the publication of six books and 125 scientific papers and articles by the staff of the observatory and our affiliated scholars.

Among our facilities are the remarkable Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in Arizona; one of the largest meteorite collections in the world including the world’s leading laboratory for measuring their physical properties; high-speed computing facilities; an extensive collection of telescopic photographic plates dating from the 19th century; and of course an excellent library including a number of historical books.

You can go to our general web site, www.VaticanObservatory.org where we outline the impact that the Observatory has had, and continues to have, in the field of astronomy. It’s far too lengthy to summarize here!

Jesuits are known for their far-reaching interest in astronomy over the centuries and in fact have made huge contributions in India.  For example, the city I live in Bengaluru had a telescope for many years housed in the Jesuit-run St Joseph’s College in the heart of the city. Can you please trace for our readers how the Jesuits came to be associated with astronomy in the history of the Catholic Church and tradition that continues to this day.

Astronomy was one of the four fundamental courses, along with arithmetic, geometry, and music, that made up the studies (called the “quadrivium”) of the medieval universities, necessary to be completed before one could do doctoral studies in philosophy or theology. So of course the Jesuits, who ran schools around the world, would be well versed in teaching these subjects.

Note that in those days astronomy was considered to be a branch of mathematics, since it was originally dealing mostly with calculating the positions of planets. An important person in this history was Fr. Christopher Clavius SJ, a key figure in the 1582 reform of the calendar, who made certain that mathematics and astronomy was an essential part of the Jesuit curriculum. Clavius was a friend and advisor to Galileo.

Among notable Jesuit astronomers were Giovanni Batiste Riccioli SJ, who in the 17th century made the first accurate map of the Moon and assigned the nomenclature we use today; Maximilian Hell SJ, who ran the observatory in Vienna and observed the transit of Venus in the 18th century; and Angelo Secchi SJ, in the 19th century, who pioneered the observation of stellar spectra and the surfaces of planets. Jesuits also ran the Beijing Observatory in China and of course set up a number of important observatories in India.

The Vatican Observatory has a long history. In its present form it was set up in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII. The first directors were not Jesuits; but a Jesuit priest-astronomer, Johan Hagen SJ, was named director in 1905 and after his death, Pope Pius XI tasked the Jesuit order with directing and staffing the observatory. In fact, as the largest order of men in the Church, the Jesuits had the largest pool of possible scientists, mathematicians, and astronomers to draw from.

For long, India was and continues to be a spiritual destination. Many have looked to East for spiritual enlightenment. India too had its share of astronomers. Aryabhata I (AD 476) is considered one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers of ancient India. Another astronomer Brahmagupta defined Zero. Many cultures including India have a strong astrology base. However, scientific testing has found no evidence to support the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions. What is your take on this?

I have fascinated by the work of Aryabhata for many years, and of course everyone knows how so much of modern mathematics derives from the work of Indians over the centuries. But most of the astronomy in India was done, as you say, in order to do astrology, which was considered a very practical reason. That is one reason my Aryabhata’s work is so fascinating, because almost uniquely he was concerned with the greater philosophical sense of how the planets moved, rather than just how their positions could be predicted.

As the famous philosopher of science, Fr. Stanley Jaki, has pointed out, in order to do any science for its own sake you must believe that the physical universe is itself inherently worth studying for its own sake. The clearest justification is found in the theology of Genesis and other scriptural texts in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that see creation as the work of God and thus an expression of God’s glory.

Thus, in the cultures of those religions, science for its own sake would be supported. By that I don’t only mean that people would allow scholars to study the physical universe; I also mean that the culture would honor such a study. Your mom would be proud of you if you chose to become an astronomer!

Can you share some extrapolation from your study of astronomy and some of the phenomena mentioned in the Bible such as the Star that the Magi saw? Could this be explained? Also the Church position on possibility life on other planets/extra-terrestrials, the creation of the Universe/Big bang theory?

I actually co-authored a book on these many topics, called “Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? And other questions…” And I know my answers are by no means the final word on the topics!

There are three things to always remember about such topics. First, there have always been devoutly religious people engaged in the studies of all these topics. Second, there is never a final “answer” to any of them; by its nature, good science will uncover new mysteries to ponder even as it explores old mysteries.  And this means that, there is not and can never be any official “Catholic” position on any of these topics.

An example of this arose in the 1950s when Pope Pius XII spoke favorably about the theory we now call the Big Bang, noting that the idea of a beginning to the universe would be familiar to anyone who read scripture. As it happened, the scientist who first proposed the Big Bang was a Catholic priest, Fr. Georges Lemaître. Fr. Lemaître spoke directly to the Pope, asking him to refrain from such statements. The Big Bang is just our best theory for right now; who knows what our understanding of cosmology might look like in a thousand years’ time?

(And, as it happens, the idea of creation-from-nothing is not the same as the Big Bang. As Aquinas points out, God does not create the universe at one moment but rather maintains the universe at every moment, since God exists outside of space and time.)

If one of our readers would like to follow your path, what advice could you give them? How could they get started on a journey like yours?

No such advice is possible! To quote an aphorism attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” My path to where I am was so convoluted and unexpected that I am sure even I could not follow it a second time. Instead, one must always be open to the whispers of the Spirit. And how do you learn to hear that small, still voice? That is why the Jesuits have retreats and retreat programs.

What was the most wonderful moment you have experienced so far in your life as an astronomer and a religious?

 That’s another impossible question to answer. Events in your life can be wonderful or tragic, but they aren’t quantified, they can’t be stacked and compared.

For me they range from meeting Pope John Paul II, to seeing the wispy light of Eta Carina in my small telescope; from seeing my first book published, to seeing the delight on the face of a student who suddenly appreciated the meaning of Maxwell’s Equations. There are more such moments than I can count.

The Vatican observatory has launched a new website recently.  Could you please highlight some key features of that for our readers in India?

 The address is www.VaticanObservatory.org and I encourage everyone to explore it. We were able to hire a professional team who specialize in web sites for Catholic organizations, and I think they did a terrific job. There are so many different branches to it, and everyone has their own favorites.

I would especially like to point out are the Faith and Science resource center, where we have assembled more than 500 articles on the topic of faith and science that teachers and other interested folks can explore.

In addition, we have a digital community called Sacred Space Astronomy that includes regular articles from both astronomers and religious about observing the sky and what it means to us… from a woman in Ireland who helps schoolchildren draw pictures of things in space, to a world-class astrophotographer who is detailing close up features on the Moon, from a priest who reflects on his stargazing and his parish, to my own collection of articles I have published over the years about my work as a Vatican Astronomer.

And there is a gallery of images from the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope; links to podcasts we have prepared; and an extensive section about our history, like our fully operational 19th century Carte du Ciel telescope.

You are one of the lucky few to have an asteroid named after you! Can you please let us know how this happened to be?

Asteroids are named by the people who discover them, and the rules are pretty loose about what names they can use. For example, you have to be dead to have a crater named for you, but you can be quite alive and get an asteroid name, as long as you’re not a politician or a general!

There is a small but active group of scientists who study small bodies in the solar system… asteroids and comets, along with meteorites and meteors. (Meteors are the flashes of light caused by dust hitting the Earth’s atmosphere; meteorites are the rocks that survive passing through the atmosphere and hit the ground.) Every three years these scientists gather for a meeting called “ACM” for asteroids, comets, and meteors. At the meeting banquet a handful of scientists who have been active in the field are singled out for asteroid names, as someone who’s discovered a bunch of asteroids will offer them up for naming. I got mine at the ACM meeting in Paris in 1997.

Could you please let us know some of the science and religious books you have read and have inspired you over the years?

There are a lot of good books out there (and even more that aren’t so good), but here are three that I have “borrowed” some of my favorite ideas from!

First, and a classic, is G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy (1909). He ranges over many topics, and never tells one story when five come to mind, but throughout it he scatters a number of important insights about nature, evolution, and the relationship between God the Creator and us as His creatures.

The opening chapters of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning (2011) have had a tremendous influence on my thinking of the supernatural nature of God and how important that is in the way we understand the relationship between Creator and the created.

Finally, I would like to recall Fr. Michael Buckley’s Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism (2004). He wrote other more technical works on the rise of atheism, but this slender volume puts a human face on it and reminds us of what we lose when we lose sight of God in the universe.

Lastly, if you could share some words with our readers on this journey of science and religion, favourite quotes or anything that inspires you.

Here are some snippets that have stuck with me…

“We are not apprentice angels” — John Polkinghorne, speaking of the importance and meaning of the Resurrection and our existence as material creatures, in Science and Christian Belief

“The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister…

To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.” — G. K. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy

“The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.” — G. K. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy

“Freud said that religious faith was the comforting illusion that there is a father figure. A religious believer might say that atheism is the comforting illusion that there is no father figure, so that we can do what we like and can get away with it: an adolescent’s dream.” — Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership

“Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” Pope John Paul II, Letter on the Occasion of the 300th Anniversary of Newton’s Principia

“Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it… It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love.” Pope Benedict, Spe Salvi.

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All images are from Vatican Observatory.