Speaking on the winter solstice, the Pope greeted today participants in events marking the beginning of UNESCO’s International Year of Astronomy.
The international year, which marks the fourth centenary of Galileo Galilee’s first observations with his telescope, will officially begin in Paris on Jan. 15.
«There have been practitioners of this science among my predecessors of venerable memory, such as Sylvester II, who taught it, Gregory XIII, to whom we owe our calendar, and St. Pius X, who knew how to build solar clocks,» the Pope explained during his Angelus address.
«If the heavens, according to the beautiful words of the psalmist, ‘narrate the glory of God’ (Psalm 19 [18], 2), even the laws of nature, which in the course of centuries many men and women of science have helped us to understand better, are a great stimulus to contemplating the works of the Lord with gratitude.»
