When friends and colleagues find out I work with the Vatican
Observatory, their first reaction is often surprise that the Catholic Church
supports a scientific research institute, particularly one that studies
astronomy. After all, the Catholic Church put Galileo on trial for heresy.
As it turns out, Galileo's difficulties were more the exception
than the rule. The Catholic Church has supported science and scientists
throughout her history, beginning with the early Fathers of the Church through
to the 21st-century Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.
The Vatican Observatory itself was founded by Pope Leo XIII for
exactly this reason, so "that everyone might see clearly that the church
and her pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or
divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it and promote it," as read in
the document "Ut Mysticam."
Many early Catholic saints, including St. Augustine, St. Basil
and St. John Chrysostom, encouraged Christians to study the universe as a way
to learn about the Creator, often referring to creation as God's "other
book." St. Anthony the Great, a monk who lived in the desert in the fourth
century, said, "My book is the nature of created things, and as often as I
have a mind to read the words of God, it is at my hand."
Many people know that Pope Francis trained as a chemist, but he
is not the first scientist to become a pope. At the start of the 11th century,
when the first flickers of modern science began to be seen in Europe, the pope
was a mathematician and astronomer.
Gerbert of Aurillac, who would become Pope Sylvester II, was sent
by his abbot to Barcelona in 967 to study mathematics. Gerbert wrote several
popular mathematics textbooks, but it was his calculating device, based on
Arabic numerals, that would introduce the decimal system to Europe and set the
stage for modern mathematics.
Popes have supported scientists and mathematicians for hundreds
of years. In 1748 Pope Benedict XIV read "Foundations
of Analysis" by the Italian mathematician (and theologian) Maria
Gaetana Agnesi. "Foundations" was one
of the first calculus textbooks written and the first mathematics book by a
woman in Europe.
Pope Benedict XIV was so impressed by Agnesi's work that he
appointed her to the faculty at the University of Bologna. The first woman
professor of physics in Europe, Laura Bassi, was also a protege of Pope
Benedict XIV, who asked her to join his elite circle of scholars, the
Benedettini.
The religious orders have nurtured scientists and their work for
more than a thousand years. Among the scientific writings of 12th-century
Benedictine abbess St. Hildegard of Bingen are a catalog of the local plants
and animals, and a primitive theory of evolution. In 1979, St. John Paul II
called her a "a light for her people and time," and in 2012, Pope
Benedict XVI added her to the church's formal list of saints and recognized her
as one of the 36 doctors of the church, for both her spiritual and scientific
insights.
Gregor Mendel, known as the father of genetics, was an
Augustinian monk. Mathematician and Sister of Mercy Mary Celine Fasenmyer's
doctoral thesis made possible key discoveries in computer science.
The priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus have produced
scores of scientists, from Father Jean Leurechon -- who in 1626 published one
of the first descriptions of a thermometer -- to astronomer Father Angelo
Secchi, who in the middle of the 19th century developed the first
classification systems for stars. Present-day Jesuit scientists include
physicists Father Cyril Opeil at Boston College, who explores the fundamental
properties of matter and Brother Robert Macke of the Vatican Observatory, who
studies meteorites.
Faithful Catholic lay men and women have also made many major
contributions to science, and many see their work as rooted in their faith.
Henri Bequerel, who won the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of
radioactivity, was remembered at his funeral as a man who found God "on
the very highway of science" as well as in the simple prayers of his
childhood.
Andre-Marie Ampere, who made fundamental discoveries about
electricity and magnetism, would startle his roommate by crying, "How
great is God, and how little is our knowledge."
Science and religion are not seen by the church as opposing
forces, but distinct and valuable approaches to understanding the universe and
our place in it. Each has something to offer the other.
St. John Paul II observed in a 1988 letter to Jesuit Father
George Coyne, then the director of the Vatican Observatory, "Science can
purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from
idolatry and false absolutes."
The church also recognizes the common thread that unites faith
and science, the search for truth. Addressing the world's scientists on this
shared vocation at the closing of the Second Vatican Council Pope Paul VI
noted, "Your road is ours. Your paths are never foreign to ours. We are
the friends of your vocation as searchers, companions in your fatigues,
admirers of your successes and, if necessary, consolers in your discouragement
and your failures."
The universe is a wonderful mystery we are called by our Creator
to explore with delight — whether we are scientists or not.
Francl is chair and professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr
College and adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory. She and Jesuit Brother
Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, recently recorded an
audio series, "Seeking the Face of God: The Lives and Discoveries of
Catholic Scientists."