Science in the Vatican
On April 21st, 2025, Pope Francis passed away. His successor is Pope Leo XIV, whose papacy began on May 8th, 2025. Pope Leo was a close advisor to Pope Francis.
In the summer of 2023, I attended a lecture and dinner at Mt. Wilson given by Brother Guy Consolmagno, Director of the Vatican Observatory in Rome, which has been in operation since 1930. The Vatican Observatory is also affiliated with the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in southeast Arizona, operated in partnership with the University of Arizona in Tucson. Among topics ranging from technical to philosophical, Brother Guy talked about the idea that science and religion are not mutually exclusive, and that historically, many members of the clergy have also been scientists.
“Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition…Science needs religion in order to have a conscience,” he said in a talk in 2006.
Pope Leo was born Robert Prevost in Chicago and is the first American-born pope. He received a B.S. in Mathematics from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and a Master of Divinity from the Catholic Theological Union in Illinois. Throughout his studies, he taught physics and math at a high school in Chicago. He joined the priesthood in 1977.
Pope Leo is currently the most prominent clergy member with ties to science.
And now, time for a Pope Quiz! (No cheating!)
- Who was the oldest pope?
- Who was the first pope to be elected by the Church?
- What was the shortest papal tenure (extra credit if you know why it ended)?
- Why didn’t Pope Francis have a number after his name?
- What were Leo XIV’s first public words as pope?
Answers to Pope Quiz: \
- Pope Leo XIII (age 93 at the time of his death)
- Pope Linus, who was also a saint (AD 68 - AD 80 [disputed])
- Pope Urban VII (died of malaria 13 days into his papal tenure)
- He was the first pope to be named Francis, and numbers are only used to differentiate between different popes with the same name
- “Peace be with you all!"