[HN Gopher] Vatican Observatory
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Vatican Observatory
Author : alexmolas
Score : 102 points
Date : 2025-05-02 08:26 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vaticanobservatory.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vaticanobservatory.org)
| pfdietz wrote:
| Brother Guy often showed (shows?) up at science fiction
| conventions in the Chicago area. Great fellow.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Consolmagno
| alexmolas wrote:
| > Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and
| keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which
| at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God
| into a nature god
|
| I love this quote!
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Jesuits love to play these motte and bailey mind games - ask
| him if he thinks Jesus actually performed his miracles or
| not.
| abrenuntio wrote:
| Would a true divine miracle be a suspension of order or a
| manifestation of it?
|
| Will it ever be possible to prove that some future human
| theory of reality is complete?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| This is what I mean.
|
| Please let me know how a world with miracles is any
| different from creationism, which apparently religion
| needs to be protected from.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| A miracle, by definition, transcends the nature of the
| thing in question. The cause is not attributable to the
| power of the thing effected or anything in the world.
|
| If God is distinct from what is created, then a miracle
| cannot be said to be a manifestation of what is created.
| Pantheism, on the other hand, must deny miracles, because
| God and the universe are one, and so all apparent
| miracles are merely unaccounted for manifestations of
| reality and perhaps explainable by "some future human
| theory of reality".
|
| Since Jesuits (ostensibly) hold to a Catholic view in
| which God and the created order are distinct, they must
| therefore believe that miracles are not only possible,
| but do happen. The question is then largely whether a
| particular effect is miraculous or not.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| That quotes needs some unpacking, because many people have
| caricaturish notions of things like "faith" or "science" or
| "religion".
|
| > Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition
| and keep it close to reality
|
| To make this more comprehensible, I will render this as
| "Faith needs reason to keep it away from superstition and
| keep it close to reality" or "to make faith _actually faith_
| , not wishful thinking or superstition". That is the Catholic
| view.
|
| True faith, pace pop culture, is never blind. Faith concerns
| what is beyond what is knowable through reason. This is the
| reason for the parental analogies in the Bible. A child
| cannot understand why a parent is guiding him a certain way,
| but he _trusts_ the parent to guide him well. By analogy,
| human reason cannot know certain things in its present
| condition, but some things have been revealed on authority
| established by other evidence or truths (hence why Christ
| argues from the Torah, etc. and performs thousands of
| miracles, with the resurrection at the pinnacle, to
| demonstrate his identity and his authority). So, faith is no
| substitute for reason; instead, reason puts faith in its
| place. In the beatific vision, faith is no longer necessary,
| analogously to how when a child becomes an adult, he no
| longer needs to trust his parents in the way he used to. He
| himself knows the things his parents did when he still did
| not.
|
| > to protect it from creationism
|
| I don't know what this means. Partly, this is because
| "creationism" is equivocal and means various things.
|
| The Catholic position accepts _creatio ex nihilo_ , which is
| to say that the universe is created/kept in existence by God
| - the first cause - out of nothing, i.e., not as a mutation
| or transformation of some preexisting being. It has no
| official position on "evolution" per se (which is also
| equivocal), but it does reject _evolutionism_ which is a
| metaphysical position. There is no official position about
| the details of how the first parents came to be, but it does
| hold that there were first parents from whom all other humans
| descend. The intellect and will (usually called the "soul")
| are taken to be the result of special acts of creation at
| each conception, and therefore not something generated by the
| parents.
|
| Catholics are permitted to believe in a range of evolutionary
| explanations (like adaptation and selection) and they are
| permitted to believe that the universe was created in 6 days
| (though blanket Biblical literalism is not traditional and
| rather modern; note that the Catholic Church compiled the
| diverse genres making up the Bible in the first place). Most
| Catholics probably accept the general prevailing cosmological
| view of an old universe, a figurative 6 days, evolutionary
| explanations in relation to the human body plan, etc. This
| may seem odd to those who come from certain American
| evangelical circles, which tend to get more attention in the
| American media.
|
| Those with a taste for speculation about how modern biology
| and Biblical accounts might be reconciled will find Ed
| Feser's posts [0][1] on the subject interesting.
|
| > which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's
| turning God into a nature god
|
| This is interesting, because one thing that is characteristic
| of paganism is that the gods are _of the world_. They are
| beings like us, or personifications of natural phenomena. But
| God in the Catholic sense is not a being among many, but
| Being Itself by which all beings are.
|
| I'm not sure what Br. Guy's definition of "creationism" is
| here, though. A web search doesn't really give me a coherent
| picture of what he means either. I _suspect_ he may be
| attacking a mechanistic metaphysics in which secondary
| causality doesn 't really exist and God is some kind of
| cosmic occasionalist puppet master. In that sense, I you
| could argue it sounds more pagan - or pan(en)theistic -
| rather than Christian.
|
| [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-
| and-...
|
| [1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-
| and-...
| williamdclt wrote:
| This is a super interesting comment, thanks!
|
| I can't say I manage to convince myself of any supernatural
| argument, but I often find them fascinating, and the
| philosophy and theology in Christianity is a lot more
| complex and interesting than many other atheists give it
| credit for (although I tend to agree it is "complicated"
| rather than "complex", making knots for itself to untie,
| but I think this about secular philosophy too).
|
| How did you build this understanding of theology? Any book
| you'd recommend?
| uticus wrote:
| Was also wondering about the "creationism" phrase here,
| popped out to me like it was in bold, given the context
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > In the beatific vision, faith is no longer necessary
|
| Many traditions argue that faith and hope are temporary,
| since in God's presence all is revealed. But on the basis
| of Paul's statement "these three remain: faith, hope, and
| love, but the greatest of these is love", others argue that
| faith and hope remain within the culminating beatific
| vision, since even the saints in his presence know him
| _truly_ but not _fully_ in the infinity of his nature.
| Faith and hope are at that point an enduring confidence
| that he will continue to be and do what is ultimately for
| his glory and our good throughout the "ages to come."
| erk__ wrote:
| Brady Haran of Numberphile and a whole bunch of other channels
| visited the observatory some years back and made some videos and
| interviews.
|
| The Pope's Astronomer - Interview with Brother Guy:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0DAKaR16cY
|
| The Pope's Telescopes - A tour of the observatory:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccoGKAL6Qas
|
| The Pope's Space Rocks - A look at their collection:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OI4wb2XIZc
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Brother Guy_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Consolmagno
| krick wrote:
| It took me way too long to realize "brother" is not some
| postmodern hippie "them/it" kinda stuff.
| msabalau wrote:
| I enjoyed the book he co-wrote: "Would You Baptize an
| Extraterrestrial?: ...and Other Questions from the Astronomers'
| In-box at the Vatican Observatory"
| qoez wrote:
| This was featured in Werner Herzogs movie "Fireball: Visitors
| from Darker Worlds"
| rdtsc wrote:
| It's also interesting that the idea of a Big Bang originated with
| Georges Lemaitre -- a Catholic priest and theoretical physicist.
| He called it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom" initially.
|
| The term itself was invented by his opponents who sort of
| ridiculed Georges initially.
| graemep wrote:
| All radical new ideas seem to be ridiculed.
| bombcar wrote:
| If your idea can't survive being ridiculed INGMI.
|
| What's amusing is how often the ridiculous name _sticks_ (big
| bang, yankee, etc).
| Retric wrote:
| Unfortunately that's not a useful heuristic.
|
| Most radical new ideas are wildly incorrect, only a minuscule
| fraction are actually real advances.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Good point, but I think radical ideas that end up being
| eventually accepted, and also ending up taking the name the
| opponents give them, sometimes as ridicule, are notable.
| theodorethomas wrote:
| Before smartphones we had https://www.cambridge.org/turnleft
| sega_sai wrote:
| They also do month-long astrophysics summer schools for students
| every two years or so. I was lucky to be part of the school ~20
| years ago. We had classes in the papal residence in Castel
| Gandolfo and audience with John Paul II. It was a great
| opportunity.
| pwil30 wrote:
| Pleasantly surprised to see this on the HN homepage! Our agency
| (Longbeard) rebuilt this website a few years ago. It was fun
| working with the great people there, including Br. Guy who is a
| fantastic ambassador for the VO.
|
| As you can imagine the Castel Gandolfo telescopes are mainly
| historical at this point due to light pollution, so their VATT
| facility in Arizona (Mount Graham) is now where most of their
| actual astonomical work is conducted.
|
| Interestingly, the VATT in AZ is directly adjacent to the LBT
| facility on Mount Graham, which has a near-infrared instrument
| formerly named - believe it or not - LUCIFER (Large Binocular
| Telescope Near-infrared Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and
| Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research).
|
| This was changed to LUCI in 2012 as the name predictably caused
| some problems and confusion.
| antognini wrote:
| Back when I was in grad school I observed at LBT (or maybe more
| accurately I was on a team that was observing at LBT). The
| Vatican's observatory down the road was affectionately referred
| to as the "Pope Scope."
| ImJamal wrote:
| This is a very random question, but do you know why it isn't on
| the va TLD?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I think vaticanobservatory.org is run by the Vatican
| Observatory Foundation (a private foundation supporting some
| aspects of the VO's work) whereas vaticanobservatory.va is
| run by the Vatican Observatory in the strict sense (the
| government department of the State of Vatican City.)
| pwil30 wrote:
| > I think vaticanobservatory.org is run by the Vatican
| Observatory Foundation (a private foundation supporting
| some aspects of the VO's work) whereas
| vaticanobservatory.va is run by the Vatican Observatory in
| the strict sense (the government department of the State of
| Vatican City.)
|
| This exactly. When our agency was working with them, there
| was some initial hope that we could consolidate the
| websites on the .va property, but we quickly realized that
| was not going to happen, primarily due to the separation
| required with the foundation wing.
|
| Also, it is in general very difficult for an outside vendor
| to get clearance to build on a .va domain, and you need
| someone internally to apply a lot of leverage to get the
| wheels spinning with Vatican IT. Our agency was able to do
| this with building out the migrants-refugees.va website,
| thanks to the help of (now Cardinal) Michael Czerny who ran
| the M&R Section at the time and was given a lot of direct
| executive power from Pope Francis, but boy, that was still
| not easy.
| latchkey wrote:
| > _Mount Graham_
|
| If you want some telescope hardware pr0n, there are some cool
| pictures in google maps of LUCIFER...
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Large+Binocular+Telescope+...
| dmos62 wrote:
| Freaking awesome...
| rconti wrote:
| Although I know the church has a lot of money, I can't imagine
| they dedicate a particularly large budget to the observatory
| compared to, say, a huge research university or a specialized
| scientific research project.
|
| Openly musing, I'm just curious how they decide which projects
| to pursue, and how they contribute to the community? I know
| nothing about astronomy, but I imagine like many areas of
| research, they have conferences on various topics, so perhaps
| the VO scientists participate in conferences relevant to their
| research. Which again, of course, brings up the question "how
| do they decide what to research"?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Although I know the church has a lot of money, I can't
| imagine they dedicate a particularly large budget to the
| observatory compared to, say, a huge research university or a
| specialized scientific research project.
|
| The VO has about the same share of the State of Vatican
| City's budget as NASA does of the US budget (but the Vatican
| Advanced Technology Telescope has a separate foundation,
| largely funded by private donations, that funded its
| construction and funds its ongoing maintenance, without going
| through the general Vatican City budget.)
| NoSalt wrote:
| They have come a long way since convicting Galileo of "a strong
| suspicion of heresy".
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Well, science came a long way in general. There were a number
| of objections to Galileo's ideas that were not religiously
| motivated.
|
| See _The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown_ , in 9 parts, a must read!
|
| Part 1: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-
| ptolemaic-smac...
|
| Part 2: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-
| ptolemaic-smac...
|
| Part 3: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-
| ptolemaic-smac...
|
| Part 4: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-
| ptolemaic-smac...
|
| Part 5: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-
| ptolemaic-smac...
|
| Part 6: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/6-great-ptolemaic-
| smackd...
|
| Part 7: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/7-great-ptolemaic-
| smackd...
|
| Part 8: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/8-great-ptolemaic-
| smackd...
|
| Part 9: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-
| smackd...
| lordleft wrote:
| Galileo's treatment by the Church was abominable, but it's
| often forgotten that the Church not only drew the lines of
| permissible thought, but also served as the primary vehicle for
| advancing and enabling the life of the mind through its
| patronage of the university system. It was not merely an
| oppressor, nor just a benevolent enabler; it was somehow both.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| When the church stopped being the arbiter of permissible
| thought, other arbiters rushed in to fill the void -- such is
| human nature. The question is not whether such institutions
| exist in society, but who they are at present.
| pwil30 wrote:
| FWIW, The Vatican Observatory had an interesting podcast
| series discussing the "real story" of the Church v. Galileo:
|
| Pt 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BNHHy5etQc
|
| Pt 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FYYB9kqkE4
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| This is an unfortunate piece of propaganda popularized by foes
| of the Church. Its stickiness is partly due to its role as a
| founding myth of the "faith as enemy of science" mythology
| which tries to reverse the facts by arrogating rationality and
| science onto itself and presents the Catholic Church as the
| great mythic foe of darkness from which science was liberated.
|
| On the contrary, it is in the bosom of the Church that
| intellectual life flourished in Europe. Scholastic thought
| brought to fruition a degree of rigorous thinking unseen
| before. It worked out the intellectual foundations that made
| modern science possible. As Stanley Jaki argues, despite the
| obvious ingenuity of various ancient cultures and
| civilizations, science never really took off anywhere else to
| become a sustained enterprise. This is not a coincidence, but a
| result of worldview and beliefs about the nature of reality,
| the possibility of knowledge, and the point of human existence.
| If you believe reality is fickle and unintelligible, if you
| believe life runs in circles and leads nowhere, you will have
| little motivation to pursue science.
|
| Where Galileo is concerned, the whole affair was hardly a
| matter of science. Galileo was notoriously cantankerous, and it
| was his habit of insulting and assaulting public figures (which
| included some who were his friends) that landed him in hot
| water. (Public insults were his way of responding to people who
| either disagreed with his unproven claims, ones he pushed
| aggressively, or tried to explain to him that he had not
| actually demonstrated his claims.) Heliocentrism was not
| heretical, so there was no possible doctrinal basis for
| accusing him of heresy. And the penalty was that an old man was
| put under house arrest in a comfy apartment overlooking the
| Vatican gardens. Whatever you might say about the justice of
| the penalty, given the norms of the day (witch hunts in
| Northern Europe anyone?), this was relatively mild, and nothing
| to do with "science".
| aruggirello wrote:
| > This is an unfortunate piece of propaganda popularized by
| foes of the Church
|
| As is/was at least in part, with the Inquisition's tools:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden
| krick wrote:
| > Galileo was notoriously cantankerous, and it was his habit
| of insulting and assaulting public figures <...> that landed
| him in hot water.
|
| That is very well put. On the topic of his punishment, I must
| say, you seriously downplayed it, but it really must be
| emphasized just how much he brought it onto himself. It's not
| even that there was "no possible doctrinal basis", but the
| Church was very purposefully evasive about this, trying to
| keep its official position somewhat neutral, and it was
| Galileo who really insisted on starting a process he wasn't
| going to win.
|
| And you really don't have to dig deep to understand why --
| simply reading his "The Assayer" by any somewhat socially-
| aware adult must be enough to get what was the issue with
| Galileo. The man really knew no chill.
| impish9208 wrote:
| I suspect a lot of non-Catholics would be surprised by the
| Vatican's position on creation, cosmology, evolution, the
| literalness (or lack thereof) of Genesis etc. A Jesuit priest
| would probably be considered a heretic by the average American
| Evangelical.
| Neonlicht wrote:
| Ask one of these famed Catholics how they feel about democracy
| or gender equality and they are just like all the other
| Christians. After all they get their orders from the same book.
| baruz wrote:
| That is not a big leap as American evangelicals typically do
| not think of Catholics as Christians, full stop.
| Animats wrote:
| Oh, an _astronomical_ observatory, not the newspaper. The Vatican
| ''s in-house newspaper is L'Osservatore Romano.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.osservatoreromano.va/en.html
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