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Brother Guy Consolmagno gets a lot of interesting looks and questions when he tells people he’s an astronomer for the Vatican Observatory.
“That’s the reason the Vatican has an observatory, precisely so people will get that puzzled look on their face,” jokes the affable American, who’s visiting Vancouver to help Catholics celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jesuits’ arrival in Canada and to give public lectures about astronomy.
Consolmagno, who has a PhD in planetary science and has taught at Harvard College Observatory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the official curator of the Vatican’s collection of more than one thousand meteorites in Rome.
Bro. Guy, as he’s called, said it’s not unusual for scientists to be practitioners of various faiths but it’s religious people who have more resistance to the notion that they can’t be scientists without losing their faith, he said.
“The Bible tells me that God created the universe and science tells me how He did it,” said Guy, noting that evolution or the Big Bang theory aren’t at odds with religion.
Continue reading: Vatican astronomer marries faith and science
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