Brother Guy Consolmagno Appointed Director of Vatican Observatory

Pope Francis addresses participants in a Vatican Observatory symposium.

Pope Francis addresses participants in a Vatican Observatory symposium.

Pope Francis has named Brother Guy Consolmagno the new director of the Vatican Observatory.

The same day that the Vatican announced Brother Consolmagno’s appointment, Pope Francis met with the observatory staff and guests who were taking part in a special symposium sponsored by the papal astronomers.

“The church urgently needs religious who dedicate their lives to being on the very frontiers between faith and human knowledge, faith and modern science,” the pope told the group.

He also recognized the importance of communicating with the rest of the world how the church and its priests “embrace, encourage and promote authentic science,” adding that it was “very important” his papal astronomers keep sharing their scientific knowledge with others, “freely giving that which you freely have received.”

Brother Guy was a program participant at Sasquan –

At Sasquan he delivered his acceptance talk for the 2014 Carl Sagan Medal for outstanding communication by an active planetary scientists to the general public, as recognized by the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.

He also has been a guest of honor at several science fiction conventions, including DucKon in 2000, ConFusion in 2002, Boskone in 2007, and ConClave in 2009.

[Via SF Site News.]

11 thoughts on “Brother Guy Consolmagno Appointed Director of Vatican Observatory

  1. Oh, neat! I haven’t seen Brother Guy in ages, and I miss him. Congratulations to him, and to his co-workers, who now have a terrific person in charge!

  2. A colleague of mine attended the Vatican astronomy summer school at the pope’s summer palace many, many years ago. The Jesuit running the school broke into the pope’s wine cellar and liberated some of the choice bottles for the class. Good times.

  3. And I see him in that photo with the Pope; front row, stage right, middle. (Third from the aisle, and third from the wall.)

  4. In other Sasquan events, Guy conducted the official interview with the Fan Guest of Honor, Leslie Turek. And he gave a number of other talks, including a couple with me, which is always fun.

    Brother Guy was also Guest of Honor at Musecon recently, as hinted by the photograph here. The shirt design is a play on Mary Lynn Skirvin Johnson’s cover for Turn Left at Orion, the classic small-telescope guide Guy wrote with Dan M. Davis.

    His writings appear from time to time on the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s blog.

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