Vatican Astronomer Says He Wasn’t Fired for Intelligent Design

c. 2006 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ The former director of the Vatican Observatory has rejected speculation that he was replaced because of his vocal opposition to “intelligent design,” adding that Pope Benedict XVI “enthusiastically supported” his work. Breaking a three-week silence, the Jesuit priest and astronomer George Coyne said he volunteered to step […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The former director of the Vatican Observatory has rejected speculation that he was replaced because of his vocal opposition to “intelligent design,” adding that Pope Benedict XVI “enthusiastically supported” his work.

Breaking a three-week silence, the Jesuit priest and astronomer George Coyne said he volunteered to step down, citing a need for fresh leadership at the observatory following his nearly 28-year tenure.


Coyne made his comments in an e-mail to Religion News Service on Saturday (Sept. 9), after returning from a summer holiday. That vacation overlapped with the Vatican’s announcement on Aug. 19 that the Rev. Jose Funes, also a Jesuit, had been appointed to succeed him.

“Upon my return from a vacation, during which I purposely avoided the news, I hear some media reports that I have been dismissed by the pope. This is simply not true,” Coyne wrote.

Over the past year, Coyne has frequently attacked “intelligent design”_ the idea that the world is too complex to have evolved according to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection _ as a “religious movement.”

In staunchly defending evolution, Coyne has also frequently crossed swords with Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, a former protege and close adviser to Benedict whose support of intelligent design has been instrumental in introducing the theory into Catholic discourse.

The clash opened a divide between Vatican scientists who support Charles Darwin’s theory and prominent theologians who believe evolution has been exaggerated to mount ideological attacks to disprove the existence of a creator God.

Coyne, who has served under three popes, dismissed as “imaginative journalism” reports linking his outspoken views to the decision to replace him.

“The work of the Vatican Observatory under my directorship has been enthusiastically supported by John Paul I, if for ever so short a reign; by John Paul II, in many marvelous ways; and now by Pope Benedict XVI,” he wrote.


Coyne said he had in recent years pressed his Jesuit superiors who operate the centuries-old observatory to find a new director. The search got under way in May.

“They finally agreed to begin a search for a new director resulting, rather rapidly to my delight, in the appointment of Jose Funes,” Coyne said. He praised Funes as a “well established international scholar” who is “devoted to the intellectual life of the church.”

The Argentine-born Funes, 43, holds a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Padua in Italy. He also studied theology at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome.

In his new post, he will oversee the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, founded by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, and the observatory’s modern research center in Mount Graham, Ariz.

Coyne will retain his post as chairman of the Vatican Observatory Foundation and expects to return to the observatory’s research staff once he completes a one-year sabbatical, which began this month.

During the sabbatical, he will serve as a parish priest at St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Raleigh, N.C.


KRE/JL END MEICHTRY

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