Centuries of Stargazing Leave Jesuit Names Written in the Heavens

Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican’s observatory.

“One thing the Bible is not,” [Jesuit astrophysicist] Father Coyne, told The New York Times Magazine in 1994, “is a scientific textbook. Scripture is made up of myth, of poetry, of history. But it is simply not teaching science.”

The latest list of approved labels for asteroids includes nods to three more scholars of the order, as well as a pope, challenging the idea that science and religion make awkward partners….

The history of the observatory, which has been staffed by Jesuits since the 1930s, is a rebuttal to the notion that the Roman Catholic Church has always sought to stand in the way of scientific advancement, an idea perpetuated by high-profile cases like those of Galileo and Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Inquisition during the Renaissance.

“There are institutions like the Pontifical Academy of Science that tell the Vatican what’s going on in the world of science, but we actually do the science,” said Brother Guy Consolmagno, an asteroid honoree (4597 Consolmagno) and director of the observatory, whose website tagline is “faith inspiring science.” In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Brother Consolmagno said that part of the mission of the observatory was “to show the world that the church supports science.”