Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist

“[A] brilliant defense of science’s place in the religious life (and vice versa).”—Publisher’s Weekly Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno’s moving and intellectually playful memoir of a life lived in the active interplay of science and religion is now available in a handsome paperback edition. Blending memoir, science, history, and theology, Consolmagno takes us on a grand adventure. We revisit the infamous “Galileo affair” and see that it didn’t unfold in quite the way we thought. We get a rare glimpse into the world of working scientists and see how scientific discoveries are proposed and advanced. We learn the inside story of the “Mars meteorite”: how can we be sure it’s really from Mars, and why can’t scientists agree on whether or not it contains evidence of life? Brother Astronomer memorably sets forth one scientist’s conviction that the universe may be worth studying only if it is the work of a Creator