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This 2021 article about the Vatican Observatory is unique in that it was published in CERN Courier, whose mission is “reporting on international high-energy physics”. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire), home of the Large Hadron Collider. Author Mark Rayner spoke to Vatican Observatory scientists Gabriele Gionti, Guy Consolmagno, and Paul Gabor (who spent time at CERN in the 1990s). Rayner writes:

Gionti, Consolmagno and Gabor all agree that, if properly discerned, the life of a scientific religious is a rewarding one in a community like the Vatican Observatory. They describe a close-knit group with a common purpose and little superficiality.

“Faith gives us the belief that the universe is good and worth studying,” says Consolmagno. “If you believe that the universe is good, then you are justified in spending your life studying things like quarks, even if it is not useful. Believing in God gives you a reason to study science for the sake of science.”

Click here to access the article from CERN Courier.

Click here to download a PDF of the entire September/October 2021 issue in which the article appears.