The United States offices of the Vatican Observatory Research Group, located at the University of Arizona
(Click to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, SJ, Ph.D. (who, by the way, has agreed to speak to an Interpreter Foundation conference early next year) recounts an experience with the press:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cExcept they kept asking me questions like \u2018What is your biggest source of conflict about the Pope?\u2019 Or \u2018Has the Pope ever tried to suppress your scientific work?\u2019 Completely out of left field!<\/span>
\u201cThey didn\u2019t want to hear me tell them how much Pope Benedict supported the Vatican Observatory and its scientific work. So, finally, frustrated that they weren\u2019t getting the story they wanted out of me, one of them asked, \u2018Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?\u2019<\/span>
\u201cWhat did you answer?\u201d<\/span>
\u201cOnly if she asks!\u201d<\/span>
\u201cI love it! How did they react?\u201d<\/span>
\u201cThey all got a good laugh, which is what I intended. And then, the next day, they all ran my joke as if it were a straight story, as if I had made some sort of official Vatican pronouncement about aliens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 The Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, SJ, Ph.D. (who, by the way, has agreed to speak to an Interpreter Foundation conference early next year) recounts an experience with the press: \u00a0 \u201cExcept they kept asking me questions like \u2018What is your biggest source of conflict about the Pope?\u2019 Or \u2018Has the Pope ever tried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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