Br. Guy Consolmagno at the Vatican Observatory in Italy on Nov. 22, 2013./ Marco Gandolfo/CNA.
Vatican City, Apr 8, 2021 / 05:00 am America/Denver (CNA).
The Vatican’s astronomical observatory has launched a new website as part of its mission to show the world the Catholic Church’s support of science and scientific research.
Together with the website, which has hundreds of resources on faith and science, the Vatican Observatory has also started a podcast to explore “the wonder of God’s universe” with Vatican astronomers and expert guests.
Jesuit Br. Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, told CNA in an email interview that the old website “was hardly ever visited.”
“The mission of the Vatican Observatory, articulated by Pope Leo XIII back in 1891, is to show the world that the Church supports science. And while we’ve done a pretty good job of doing the science, I know we’ve been less successful at ‘showing the world,’” Consolmagno said.
With roots dating back to 1582, the Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest active astronomical observatories in the world.
The headquarters are in Castel Gandolfo, a town just outside Rome and the location of the summer residence of the popes. A dozen priests and brothers live and study there.
The Vatican Observatory also has a research group at the University of Arizona, where in partnership with the university, the observatory constructed the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) on Mount Graham. It began operation in 1993.
Consolmagno said the new website had been in the works for well over a year, and after receiving a grant at the beginning of summer 2020, “we’ve been working pretty much full time on the site.”
The astronomer said that when he meets people he frequently hears that they did not know the Vatican had an observatory.
“The message we have for the general public can be quite detailed,” he said, referencing the website’s Faith and Science resource center.
“But frankly, the mere awareness that we exist, a modern astronomical observatory supported by the Vatican (and by donations to our Foundation), says everything essential that needs saying.”
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Pope Francis celebrates the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Mar 29, 2024 / 15:20 pm (CNA).
During the Good Friday liturgy at the Vatican, presided over by Pope Francis, the papal preacher reflected on the triumph of the cross, noting that it is an event that changed the universal perception of God’s omnipotence, revealing his humility.
“The true omnipotence of God is the total powerlessness of Calvary,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap., said during his homily.
Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
At approximately 5 p.m. Rome time, Pope Francis made his way into Saint Peter’s Basilica, in a wheelchair, vested in a red chasuble. Cast against the backdrop of complete and palpable silence, the Holy Father paused in meditation before the Papal Altar underneath Bernini’s Baldacchino (covered in scaffolding for its restoration), while the congregation knelt.
For the past several years the pope has been unable to lay prostrate due to his fragile health, which includes persistent knee problems and several bouts of pulmonary inflammation.
After the chanting of the passion from the Gospel of John, Cantalamessa — who was made a cardinal in 2020 after more than 40 years as Preacher of the Papal Household — opened his homily reflecting on Christ’s self-affirmation of “I am,” words he said come without any qualification and carry “an absolute, metaphysical significance” and is an “unprecedented novelty.”
“Jesus did not come to retouch and perfect the idea that men had of him God, but, in a certain sense, to overturn it and reveal the true face of God,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. said during his homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
The cardinal stressed that this new paradigm can only be understood by looking at Christ’s preceding words heard in the passion: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man.”
Observing that “to be lifted up” refers to the crucifixion, the cardinal noted that the sum of these words express a “total reversal of the human idea of God,” revealing “the true face of God.”
“Jesus did not come to retouch and perfect the idea that men had of him, but, in a certain sense, to overturn it and reveal the true face of God,” he said. ““He humbly behaves in the glory of the resurrection as in the annihilation of Calvary. The concern of the risen Jesus is not to confuse his enemies, but to immediately go and reassure his lost disciples and, before them, the women who had never stopped believing in him.”
“The true omnipotence of God is the total powerlessness of Calvary,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. said during his homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
“Understood in this light,” Cantalamessa continued, “the word of Christ takes on a universal significance that challenges those who read it, in any era and situation, including ours.”
The cardinal warned not to conflate God’s omnipotence, and the “definitive and irreversible triumph” of the cross with temporal triumphs, as God’s triumph showcases humility.
“It takes little power to show off,” the cardinal noted, “Instead, it takes a lot to step aside, to cancel. God is this limitless power of self-concealment.”
“The resurrection takes place in the mystery,” he continued. “As a resurrected one, Jesus appears only to a few disciples, out of the spotlight. With this he wanted to tell us that after suffering, we must not expect an external, visible triumph, like an earthly glory.”
Pope Francis celebrates the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
At the end of Cantalamessa’s homily, the faithful sat in a moment of deep silence and reflection. This was followed by the reading of the Oratio Universalis, the universal prayer also known as the Solemn Intercessions.
Then, a deacon, flanked by two candle bearers, stopped at three separate points in the central nave of the basilica, proclaiming, with an increasing pitch, “Ecce lignum crucis” (“behold the wood of the cross”). After the third proclamation, the deacon, holding an unveiled crucifix, brought it to the papal chair for the pope’s veneration.
Once the crucifix was fixed in a central place, the Sistine Chapel Choir chanted the Improperia, or the Good Friday Reproaches, a series of antiphons sung in alternating manner between a cantor and the choir. The cardinals, who sat opposite the pope, filed in line to kneel before and kiss the crucifix.
After the final prayer over the people, the pope left the basilica just as he entered: solemn, and in silence.
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