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The Jesuit order is in charge of the Vatican's astronomy and astrobiology projects.

A few years ago, I attended a talk by the Director, Brother Guy Consolmagno. The first thing that struck me is that he's a rare non-ordained Jesuit. They're a priestly order, and so most men answer a dual vocation, with the intention of becoming a priest. Anyway, Brother Guy had some great speculation on extraterrestrial life, and what this would mean to our faith, and how today's discoveries have already molded our faith in amazing ways.

Pope St. John Paul the Great wrote that "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth..." https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/d...

The Vatican Observatory is really fun to follow on LinkedIn. They publish an active Podcast as well, which is cross-platform - even RSS! https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/podcast/

I once visited the Palomar Mountain Observatory in the 1980s, and we learned all about the 207-inch Hale telescope, how it was designed and built, how it was transported, and what they were discovering thanks to its gigantic girth. Of course, the Hale mirror now pales in comparison to the latest stuff. But it seems that the VATT's primary mirror is a relatively modest 1.83 meters.

My sister is more of an astronomer than I am, but I definitely love this equipment.

It's interesting that the Vatican telescope is in Arizona.

Most likely it's some sort of papist plot ;)