The 2025 St. Albert Initiative on Science and the Catholic Faith will be held on March 6 at Bellarmine University in my home town of Louisville, Kentucky. At least two people from the Vatican Observatory will be there — me (no surprise) and VO astronomer Fr. David Brown, S.J.
The St. Albert Initiative (SAI) is sponsored by the Society of Catholic Scientists (SCS) and the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame and is supported by generous grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation. The March SAI will be a half-day program on science and faith for Catholic high school students, teachers, and parents as well as interested members of the general public (high school age and above). It will feature short talks by Catholic scientists and the opportunity to meet, eat with, and ask questions of Catholic scientists in many fields and at various stages of their careers.
VO folks are no strangers to the SAI. VO Adjunct Scholar Maria Elena Monzani was part of last year’s SAI (held at Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans). She gave a talk called “A Sparkle in the Dark: The Outlandish Quest for Dark Matter”. Fr. Brown was part of the 2023 SAI (at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Philadelphia). He and McGrath’s Heather Foucault-Camm spoke on “The Chemical Elements and Cosmic Order”. This year I am both giving a talk on the VO and doing a poster session on the Bouchet Telescope (with Tim Tomes, Archivist for the Archdiocese of Louisville) — click here for more about the Bouchet Telescope.
Other talks this year will include:
- “Science and the Catholic Faith,” by Stephen M. Barr of SCS and Chris Baglow of McGrath
- “Is the Universe Made for Life?” by Stephen Barr
- “The History of Life in Deep Time” by Kate Bulinski of Bellarmine University and Dcn. Ned Berghausen of the Archdiocese of Louisville (both of whom have written guest posts for Sacred Space Astronomy)
- “Why you Don’t Need to be Afraid of Your Toaster Just Yet: What Does Artificial Intelligence Do and How Does it Work?” by Heather Foucault-Camm of McGrath
- “Modern Science, the Catholic Church, and the Galileo Affair”, by Cory Hayes of John Paul the Great Academy in Louisiana
- “Evolution and the Catholic Faith”, by Dan Kuebler of Franciscan University in Steubenville
- “The Science of the First Humans”, by Kieran McNulty of the University of Minnesota
- “The Big Bang Theory and Fr. Georges Lemaȋtre”, by Robert Scherrer of Vanderbilt University
Also present will be several professors from the University of Louisville — Paul Clark (Nursing), Eugene Mueller (Chemistry), and Gerard Williger (Physics and Astronomy) — and from Bellarmine — Anna Christianson (Chemistry) and Martha Carlson Mazur (Environmental Studies).
It looks to be a good day for science and Catholicism. I’m glad the VO is continuing to be part of it.
If you are interested in attending, click here for complete information and for registration links.
Photo courtesy of Brendan J. Sullivan, Assistant Director of Communication for Photography and Video, Bellarmine University Office of University Communication.
