Star-gazing brings Vatican’s chief astronomer ‘closer to God’ FEATURE 05/06/2010

Star-gazing brings Vatican’s chief astronomer ‘closer to God’

FEATURE 05/06/2010 CASTEL GANDOLFO — Jesuit priest Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican’s astronomic observatory, says star-gazing brings him closer to God. “I became an astronomer in order to get closer to God who created the universe,” said Funes at the observatory in the vast park surrounding the Pope’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome. “We wonder the same things that our secular colleagues do — how does the universe work, how did it originate, are there planets similar to Earth?” said Funes, 47. Both Funes and his colleague Guy Consolmagno studied astronomy before joining the priesthood. “I’m primarily a scientist,” said Consolmagno, previously a university professor in the United States. “It’s my belief in God that gives me the courage to do science because I have to have a faith... that there are answers, that there are laws to be found, that the universe is worth studying, it’s not just chaos,” he said.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100506com6.html

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