Pope Visits with His Astronomers

(16 Sep 09 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI is to tour the new premises of the Specola Vaticana, or Vatican Observatory, Wednesday.

This summer, the Observatory moved from its former location on the top floors of the Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo to occupy a renovated monastery within the grounds of the Pope’s Summer residence.

The new premises affords greater space for the Specola’s extensive library and precious meteorite collection as well as accommodation to the increasing number of young Jesuit priests who enter this  field of scientific research.

Emer McCarthy spoke to the director of the Specola, Fr. Josè Funes

This is a very important visit for us and a very significant one because it is a sign of Pope Benedict XVI’s interest in science and particularly our work at the Vatican observatory. Sometimes science is presented against religion, that the church is against science and this is simply not true and it is important for the Vatican Observatory and for the church to be there where the most important research is going on in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy for Sciences; we are organising a study week on astrobiology which is research on life in the universe, in which places where we should search for signs of life in the universe.

Q: So once again the Specola at the forefront of questioning.

This is a very interesting topic, many big institutions are involved in this kind of research, just to say NASA for example. Besides this is a interdisciplinary study, biology and astronomy interact together, and as you can imagine there are many other philosophical and theological questions that may be may with this kind of research.