“The highest levels of Vatican administration and geo-politics, know that, now, knowledge of what’s going on in space, and what’s approaching us, could be of great import in the next five years, ten years.”[i]—Father Malachi Martin, adviser to three popes
“You want to know about UFO[s] and little green men? Contact the Vatican. They have an observatory out in Arizona, and that’s what they are looking for.”[ii]—Gordon Cooper, NASA astronaut
If astronomers do discover a planet suitable for extraterrestrial life, Mt. Graham is probably the facility that will make the announcement. Of course, a lot of people are wondering what the Vatican is doing up there—astronaut Gordon Cooper sure had an interesting opinion—and we hope to shine some light on that question.
While touring VATT, we met a Jesuit engineer eager to pontificate on the compatibility of science and faith. Of course, we agree that the war alleged by secularists is more about poor philosophy than a concrete conflict, but some Jesuits are part of the problem (more on that later). The VATT is a cherry assignment for a Jesuit interested in science. While the living quarters are tight, wealthy benefactors furnished a plush leather sofa and chairs for the otherwise rustic retreat. Amenities aside, this facility is for serious astronomy, and it houses an impressive instrument on an ideal location. The mission of VATT is displayed prominently outside the entrance in Latin and in English indoors.
By way of surveying the role of astronomy in astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, this series will follow our tour. First, we’ll look at how the Mt. Graham complex came to be and examine some of the Vatican’s contributions. Then, we will stroll up the gravel road to the LBT and discuss the search for exoplanets. Finally, we will look at the Submillimeter and radio telescopes, especially their use in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program. Along the way, we will try to unpack why the Jesuit in charge of the Vatican Observatory Research Group told the media in 1993 that the purpose of VATT and the Mt. Graham International Observatory was to contact extraterrestrials and baptize them into the Roman Catholic Church.
The VATT facility is really the brainchild of Jesuit George V. Coyne, who became director of the Vatican Observatory in 1978. In addition to his duties as a Jesuit, he was an adjunct professor in the University of Arizona’s astronomy department, as well as associate director of the Steward Observatory. As a darling of the atheist community, he appeared with Richard Dawkins advocating a deistic form of Darwinism and stunned the high priest of atheism by also promoting a radical form of pluralism, the idea that all religions lead to the same God.[iii]
Of course, to those familiar with the radical revisionism of Vatican II (Second Vatican Council), it was no big surprise, but Coyne stretches the bounds of orthodoxy even given Rome’s embrace of postmodernism. He profaned the film Religulous hosted by atheist Bill Maher, claiming that the Scriptures are scientifically inaccurate obscurantisms to the cheers of secularists and pagans universal. As we will address in a later chapter, it seems that just as Malachi Martin lamented in The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church (1987), this sort of reductionist postmodernism has become the stock and trade of third-millennium Jesuitism.
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