Brother Guy

I am sitting in a lecture by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ ("S.J. Stands for 'Super Jenius'")

He looks like a Jewish rabbi with his thick, curly, salt-and-pepper hair, and he's got a lisp.

And he's hysterical.

Lecture notes:

* the Vatican observatories are not made of tin as Dan Brown asserts but of mahogany
* Br. Guy's office above the Pope's floor. Only man in the church higher than the Pope. ;)
* Galileo ticked off all the Jesuits who should have been on his side by making enormous fun of Christopher Schier, SJ

Galileo and the Church:
* G a devoutly religious man
* Books went through censors; "our civ will be the civ rem. b/c of Galileo"; books passed twice: once in Rome, once in Florence
* Galileo not convicted of heresy
* What was going on? Who knows?
* Galileo guilty of being suspected of heresy; recanted... nothing. Church scientists screwed up. Oops. Got its roes confused.

* (G trial in 1635)
* In 1655 Cassini used Cathedrals as astronomical tools to fix calendars, draw maps, measure sun.
* 1672: Riccioli (SJ) named craters in moon; 35 Jesuits have craters named after them.
* In 1620 Copernicus' book censored; the amount of attention paid to it was about the same amt paid to traffic laws in Rome.
Church of St. Ignatius -- no dome, flat roof painted in perfect perspective; ran out of money; haha. Still haven't put an observatory there.
* the Vatican observatories are not made of tin as Dan Brown asserts but of mahogany
* Fr. Angelo Secchi, SJ observed via color spectrum the composition of stars... previously astronomers measured only positions. Real Things made out of Stuff -- moved the study from Astronomy to Astrophysics. (1865 started publishing)
* Leo XIII wanted to show independance of Vatican; @ same time, idea of science & religion are supposed to be opposed (EVERYBODY knew world was round prior Christopher Columbus; idea that CC thought world was flat invented by Andrew White in 19th century -- specifically American idea, anti-immigrant/anti-Catholic myth). In short, L founded Vatican observatory to show the neutrality of science.
* 1910 Catholic priest working at Vatican proved Galileo right

* Big Bang theory invented by Catholic priest in 19something
* the Vatican observatories are not made of tin as Dan Brown asserts but of mahogany

* 1200 refugees (mostly Jewish) taken care of by (German) Jesuits in neutral territory of Vatican gardens

Br. Guy likes Beatles!!! Story:

1968 one had no Europe-US live t.v. First satellites not synchronous and so live tv was about 20mins. Every maj country in Europe given 3 mins and England wanted a new song in 3mins to be performed, so they wrote "All You Need Is Love".

Sign that church is not opposed to science as sign to scientists, but as a sign to church people.


Totally random and disconnected notes... but there you have them.