Kuruvilla Pandikattu

Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit religious brother with an MIT degree, has worked as “the pope’s astronomer” as director of the Vatican Observatory who has a profound love for studying space, reading and watching science-fiction as well as Jesus and the Gospels. Embraced by both the scientific and the religious communities, Consolmagno is also in the business of shattering myths about the compatibility between science and religion.

“Neither science or faith is the goal,” he said. “Truth is the goal.”The 65-year-old Consolmagno, a self-proclaimed “nerd” who has worked for decades as a planetary scientist, has had an asteroid named after him, scoured Antarctica for meteorites and written eight books on space and theology. His most-recent book, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial published in 2014, came from a question a reporter once asked him while on a trip to England.

“Science isn’t the facts, it’s the conversation,” Consolmagno said in April 2018 during an appearance at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York for an event called “Jesuits and Jedi: Science and Spirituality in the Age of Star Wars.”

The two-hour event was primarily aimed at clearing up misconceptions about the relationship between science and religion as well as serving as a celebration of science-fiction books and movies such as Star Wars. The talk was interspersed with short clips from Star Wars as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation to illustrate issues involving morality and ethics.

“Religion isn’t so cut and dry,” he added. “If you think you have it all figured out, your religion is dead.” Consolmagno, who became a Jesuit in 1989, is a perfect example of how reason and faith can come together. In 2015, he was named by Pope Francis to director of the Vatican Observatory, an organization headquartered at the Pope’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo that currently operates a telescope in Arizona. The organization employs about a dozen astronomers who study asteroids, meteorites and cosmology.

Asked about the Pope and appointing him to the position, Consolmagno joked: “He’s sort of our Yoda.”

The Catholic Church has had a long-standing interest in astronomy. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII established the Vatican Observatory and placed it on a hillside behind the dome of St Peter’s Basilica. By the 1930s, the growing glow of Rome made it nearly impossible to conduct interstellar observations. As a result, the facility was moved nearly 20 miles outside the city at Castel Gandolfo. In 1961, the same problem forced a move to Tucson, Arizona, USA.

While Consolmagno marries faith and science, he also professes a love for science-fiction. “Science-fiction isn’t about the future,” Consolmagno said. Science fiction has to do with today and our understanding of science of today.

Consolmagno said questions surrounding artificial intelligence and computer technology are areas science-fiction have tackled for decades, allowing people to explore the ethical issues surrounding their use in our everyday lives.“Intelligence, knowledge and information is so slippery a thing to define,” he said. “The great thing about science-fiction is that you get to ask the question.” Asking questions is really important!