Jun 30, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Often mistakenly seen as conflicting entities, the Catholic Church is striving to build up the field of science as students from around the globe begin studies at this year’s summer session at the Vatican observatory south of Rome.
The observatory is located in Castelgandolfo, Italy, on the site of the papal summer residence, where, for the last 20 years, promising young science students have been selected for the rigorous summer program.
This year’s 25-member class was selected from over 200 applicants from around the world, and represents 19 different countries.
Father Chris Corbally, a Jesuit priest from Britain is the observatory's vice-director and dean of its international summer school. He told Reuters recently that, "Science is an important value in human life and therefore it is important to the Catholic Church."