While the whole nature of the Vatican Observatory is to be a bridge between science and the Catholic Church, studies involving science, philosophy, and theology have formed an explicit part of the Observatory's activity since 1987 when it organized two interdisciplinary conferences as a response to Pope John Paul II's request for something both to commemorate Sir Isaac Newton's epoch-making book, Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and to contribute to the dialogue between the two cultures. The first meeting to commemorate the Newton tercentenary was held in Cracow, May 1987, and resulted in the book, Newton and the New Direction in Science. This prepared for the second meeting, September 1987, at Castel Gandolfo, whose proceedings and a message from Pope John Paul II are given in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding.

Pope John Paul II

These beginnings led the Observatory, together with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences of Berkeley, California, to initiate a series of five, interdisciplinary research workshops with the theme of 'Divine Action in the World'. These were by invitation only for the workshop process to be effective. The workshops in the series have each resulted in a book: Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature, Chaos and Complexity, Evolutionary and Molecular Biology, Neuroscience and the Person, Quantum Physics. Details on obtaining these and other books of the Vatican Observatory are given on the publications page. (Further information may be obtained from William Stoeger @)