Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, has been invited to the UK by interdenominational body Grasping the Nettle (GTN), which promotes dialogue on how faith and science can work together.
He will give a number of academic talks and will also attend school conferences during his four-day visit to Scotland this week.
The American research astronomer will also attend the GTN National Conference in Edinburgh on November 2.
Brother Consolmagno, a Jesuit religious brother, said: “I am thrilled to be coming to Scotland to participate in the Grasping the Nettle programme.
“It’s so important to dialogue with students and the general public, of all faiths and sciences, how faith enhances our science and science our faith. Both seek truth, and find it in joy.”
He added: “The claim that somehow a scientist must be atheist is a holdover from the Victorian idea of materialism.
“But consider the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell, whose famous equations led to the overthrow of that misconception and opened the door to modern physics. He was a man of deep faith; and, of course, a Scotsman. I am honoured to visit the land of his birth.”
GTN challenges the idea that increasing scientific knowledge implies that science and religion are in conflict.
Very Rev John Chalmers, former Church of Scotland moderator and ambassador-at-large for GTN, said: “Those of…
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