Peering Into Heaven All Day Long

Photo Credit: NASA (Kuiper Belt)

Ok, I admit. I’m a card-carrying, bona fide believer in extraterritorial intelligent life. I have visited Roswell, New Mexico on the anniversary of its museum and spoken to people who knew directly of the events surrounding the interplanetary evidence that landed there in 1947. We studied government documents and correspondence from every American president along with artifacts of materials retrieved from the debris where the evidence fell. Nearby is the famous federal property cordoned off by security military forces barring any curious tourists from getting on to the property. Debate continues to surround Roswell and its claims that a ‘ship’ from outer space landed at its Air Force base including intelligent beings who died in the event or during the process of carting just about everything off to the Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio where, presumably, the material evidence remains guarded under intense security. 

For me, the heavens are as exciting as the mysteries of the Earth. I venerate whatever is over my head and under my feet. These are two universes full of knowledge about what life is and we are made from both: the dust of the atmosphere and the humus of the earth. We are an extension of both. They can tell us where we are going in life. They can tell us of our destiny. And our God.

Since reading an article, “The Vatican Observatory Looks to the Heavens” (Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, July 28, 2025) I have wondered, dreamily, what it’s like to peer into the heavens every day as a career. That’s what Guy Consolmagno, S.J., does when he isn’t traveling the world giving talks as the head of the Vatican Observatory located both at Castle Gandolfo in Italy and at the Mt. Graham International Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Consolmagno worked with the late George Coyne, S.J., long time director of the Observatory, and succeeded him ten years ago. Consolmagno is a Jesuit Brother, not a priest, who joined the Jesuits after serving as a high school science teacher as part of the Peace Corps in Africa. He is credited with a new method for measuring the density and porosity of meteorites as well as leading a team of 15 Jesuit scientists who work at both Observatories studying specimens from the universe, writing peer-reviewed articles, and collaborating with other scientists to analyze the “objects in the Kuiper Belt, a band of ice-rich asteroids in the distant solar system” indicating the existence of a massive planet, as yet undiscovered, beyond Pluto. Add to this the need for a code of ethics in space exploration made imperative with the growing number of billionaires sending up their own rockets often for rich people, not for the advance of science.

The present observatory, as a ministry, was inspired by Pope Leo XIII in the late nineteenth century. At the time, an international community of scientists embarked on a project to create a map of the entire sky by dividing the task among zones of scientists including the newly formed Vatican Observatory. It had been accepted into cutting-edge science with this assignment! Under Pius XI the Jesuits were given charge of directing the observatory.

Reflection

All fields of science include religious men and women. Think of Pierre de Chardin, SJ, paleontologist; Mendel, geneticist; Miriam Michael Stimson, O.P., chemist and inventor, to name very few. These scientists-religious brought to their fields insights governed by an awe for creation and belief in a motivating Power driving them to explore life for the good of fellow human beings and all life in general. According to Consolmagno, “God is God; he can, in theory, do anything he likes…the God who created this universe is someone who loves to act with elegance, economy, predictability, and consistency.”

There are two take-aways from Consolmagno’s thinking that are helpful for our reflection this week. One is that he does not agree that the cosmos was made for us. This is anthropic thinking. It would probably negate evolution as a reality holding that the human being is superior to all the rest of creation even in other worlds. Second, Consolmagno does not believe that miraculous events in scripture are grounded in reality, especially scientific reality. This type of thinking is called concordism. He believes that “Scripture was not written to tell you about the natural world…It was to tell you about God.” He states that “using science to prove religion would make science greater than religion. It would make your version of God subservient to your understanding of the universe.” Which of these two approaches do you subscribe to, if either?

In the waning of a beautiful summer season with a sun listing more to the horizon in the early hours of evening, do yourself a big favor. Lie on the grass, or in the hammock, or sit on a lawn chair on a clear night and scan the sky. Let the sky speak to you. What do you see? Hear? Feel? It will be a prayerful moment worthy to be recorded in your journal. When the first human beings walked on the moon, Pope Paul VI was very moved to address the astronauts. He greeted them with a beautiful welcome which can be your prayer when you think of the astronauts who made the journey because they saw it as a mission which God blest because it was done for the advancement of humankind and respectful of the laws of the universe. It is a beautiful greeting, a prayer of wishes that the effort was in God’s design and the astronauts were his co-workers in this effort.

“Honor, greetings, and blessings to you, conquerors of the Moon, pale lamp of our night and our dreams! Bring to her, with your living presence, the voice of the spirit, a hymn to God, our Creator and our Father.”

May all of you, my friends and Anonymous Angels, drink deeply of the gifts of summer and the universe that embraces us all.