Holy Scientists
Fr Douglas McGonagle
ISBN 9781784698515
eISBN 9781784698805
ASIN B0GZ4BZJGY
CTS Booklet B783
This and a companion volume Holy Nurses by Dr. Gosia Brykczynska were announced at the same time. I immediately added both of them to my wish list. It was a bit of a wait for the eBook edition but it was so worth it. This is the second volume I have read from Fr Douglas McGonagle, and it is his second for the Catholic Truth Society, the other is The Star of Bethlehem What did the Magi See?. And I believe he has no other books available.
Over the last several years, I have read many books from the Catholic Truth Society, in fact over 465 of them as of the reading of this volume; many read more than once; this all since the spring of 2018. Most were good reads; some were great reads; and a few are exceptional. And this is an another great little volume.
The description of this volume is:
“Holy Scientists tells the story of several remarkable men and women who have made profound contributions to science without conflict with their Catholic faith, while tackling the difficult issue of Galileo vs. the Church and refuting the notion that faith and science are incompatible.
Holy Scientists tells the story of several remarkable men and women who have made profound contributions to science without experiencing any conflict with their Catholic faith. Fr Douglas McGonagle doesn’t shy away from controversial issues: he refutes the idea that faith and science are inherently incompatible and demystifies the Galileo vs. the Church episode.
McGonagagle continues by revealing the remarkable work of some unambiguously Catholic scientists: Nicholas Copernicus (astronomer and Canon to the Bishop of Warmia), Sr Miriam Michael Stimson, O.P. (chemist and Dominican nun), and Mgr Georges Lemaître (astronomer and priest). Finally, he asks: could God be calling you to be a scientist?”
About the author we are informed:
“Fr Douglas McGonagle is both a Roman Catholic priest and an astronomer. He received his PhD in Astronomy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1995. He was ordained a priest in 2000 and is currently the pastor of Most Holy Redeemer parish in Hadley, Massachusetts. He is also the author of The Star of Bethlehem: What Did the Magi See? (CTS, 2023).”
The chapters and sections in the book are:
Acknowledgements
Religion & Science: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Sr Miriam Michael Stimson OP Consecrated Chemist
Mgr Georges Lemaître Astronomer Priest
Is God Calling You to be a Scientist?
I highlighted a few passages while reading this volume, some of them are:
“When people first meet me, they soon surmise that I am a Catholic priest. I would like to believe this impression arises from the sanctity of my personage; however, I must confess that it is more likely because I habitually wear a Roman collar. If my new acquaintance spends any time with me, they may also find out I am a scientist. A radio-astronomer, to be precise. In fact, I was an astronomer before I was ordained a Roman Catholic priest.”
“If God exists, if God is rational, if God created all that is seen and unseen through His Word, then it is reasonable to me that doing science is akin to rethinking God’s thoughts.”
“In this book we will present the lives of several scientists who were publicly known to believe in God. They believed there is more to existence than what can be studied empirically. Though many of the people we will meet are Roman Catholics, some were not.”
“The cast of characters we will encounter will range from saints to scoundrels. Many are clergy, both Catholic and Anglican. Some scientists we will meet were members of religious communities. Amongst the lay scientists, we will also find a range of sanctity. We will find the devout like Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, who seriously considered the Catholic priesthood. We will also find some who, like the great French Catholic scientist León Foucault, may have been indifferent to religion through much of their lives but in their final days found consolation in the Faith of their childhood.”
“In presenting the lives of these ‘holy’ scientists, it is my intention to stir in the hearts of people who share the scientific or engineering mindset a desire to strive for holiness as scientists or engineers. I affirm the Church’s teaching that all people, lay or religious, are called to attain the highest levels of the spiritual life.”
“The late Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard University palaeontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, argues in his book, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, 1 that both science and religion are necessary to live a full human life, a sentiment echoed in a quote attributed to Br Alwyn Macomber, OR, when he observed, “Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet.”
“In reality, the idea that science and religion are inescapably locked in mortal combat is a myth. In fact, I will go so far as to assert that spending our lives in the service of both science and religion is indispensable to a full and meaningful life.”
“Now, please let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying there has never been conflict between scientists and religious. No, my point is this: conflict between science and religion is not inevitable.”
“I contend that we should embrace both science and religion in order to live a full human life. I will even be so bold as to maintain that, analogous to St Jerome’s stark dictum that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ, ignorance of creation is ignorance of the Creator.”
“There are devotees of one domain who deny the other domain’s right to exist. Partisans on both sides are sceptical that the ‘other side’ will indeed respect the independence of each magisterium and are fearful the ‘other side’ will encroach on their ‘turf.’”
“Nevertheless, I would suggest we not let the best be the mortal enemy of the good. I am an engineer at heart. I have often found that the ‘good’ is good enough. So long as we keep in mind the limitations and imperfections of any tool, algorithm or scheme then we can still make progress towards our goal, even if that tool be imperfect.”
“In the rest of this book, we will visit the story of Galileo and learn how the consensus that Earth is motionless was first supported and then disproved by scientists, many of whom were believers. We will then jump ahead to the twentieth century and learn how a Dominican sister helped make it possible to unravel the secrets of the DNA molecule. We will also meet a diocesan priest who fought in an opening battle of the Great War, was nearly killed by an Allied bombing in the Second World War, formulated a theory to explain the universe we all live in today and even had a spaceship named after him. Finally, we will ask the question, is God calling you to be a scientist?”
“I also learned from both Gould’s and Redondi’s books that, when Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) and Galileo squared off, this was not a battle between strangers but between two old friends.”
“To put what happened in terms familiar to us today, fact-checkers demanded the Pope curtail Galileo’s heliocentric disinformation by deplatforming him, demonetising him and, if necessary, cancelling him. Cardinal Bellarmine placed an injunction on Galileo in 1616, prohibiting him from defending or holding to the Copernican theory. The Cardinal reported back to the Pope that Galileo had acquiesced. Rumours begin to swirl that Galileo was admonished and had to do penance for supporting Copernicanism. Galileo requested relief.”
“What we should keep in mind throughout this whole sorry affair is this: the players in this tragedy were believers. The Catholics–Copernicus, Fr Foscarini, Galileo, Cardinal Bellarmine, Pope Urban–were all believers. The Protestant scientists like Tycho and Kepler were men of faith. Protestant or Catholic, these scientists were all believing Christians. This was not a fight between those who believed in God and those who did not. The combatants were believers who should have known better how to disagree with one another in charity. The conflict was between scientists and religious, not science and religion.”
“Galileo had great scientific intuition. With the advantage of hindsight, we now know his intuition was correct; even so, based on the data available to him at the time, he could not prove that the Earth orbited the Sun. Perhaps he was seduced by the elegance and beauty inherent in the simplicity of the heliocentric model. Aesthetics can be important in helping to tease out the secrets of nature but many a beautiful theory has been destroyed by cold, hard, empirical facts.”
“During her time at St Joseph Academy and St Joseph College, Marian got to observe the Dominican sisters closely. She saw in them strong women who were having a positive effect on the world. She felt the beginnings of a religious vocation.”
“And so, at the start of 1933, Marian entered the congregation as a postulant. She went on to become a novice and in 1934 received her habit and her religious name, Miriam. After a yearlong novitiate, Sr Miriam made her simple vows in 1935. She would make her final vows five years later. Between making her simple and then final vows, Sr Miriam managed to finish her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 1936.”
“Sr Miriam was assigned to work in a biochemistry group led by Dr John Robert Loofbourow (1903-1951). It was through Loofbourow that Miriam became interested in spectroscopy. She also worked in the laboratory with another biochemist, Dr Elton Straus Cook. It would be Dr Cook (1909-1990) who sparked her interest in organic compounds such as deoxyribonucleic acid, more familiarly known as DNA.”
“Please don’t spend too much time trying to picture in your mind a photon being both a particle and a wave at the same time; you can’t. A photon is a photon. If you can accept God to be a Trinity, then you should be able to deal with light being a duality and simply leave it at that.”
“Sr Miriam first began her career as a scientist doing UV spectroscopy; however, it would be her work in IR spectroscopy that would have a significant impact on our understanding of the DNA molecule.”
“In September 1904, aged ten, Georges began his education at a Jesuit school. He distinguished himself in mathematics, physics and chemistry. Curiously, though, he never received an academic award for religion. So, where did priesthood come from?”
“According to Lemaître himself, he decided at age nine to become both a scientist and a priest.”
““What is more significant,” he continues, “is that exactly at the same time, actually in the same month as I remember it, I made up my mind to become a priest. I was interested in truth from the standpoint of salvation, as well as truth from the standpoint of scientific certainty. There were two ways of arriving at the truth. I decided to follow them both.””
“Self confidence is evident in Georges’ decision to drop mining and engineering and return to his childhood aspirations of being a scientist and a priest. Over the next four years Georges would not only attain a master’s degree in physics and mathematics, he would also be ordained to the priesthood.”
“When Georges was interviewed by Cardinal Mercier as part of his entrance into the seminary, he found someone who understood his spiritual as well as intellectual aspirations. He was intrigued by the Cardinal’s emphasis on priesthood being a life lived in imitation of Christ under the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. Evangelical counsels are foundational to the life of a religious.”
“Either way, imagine the self-assurance and boldness it took for our good priest to step up to the great Albert Einstein, introduce himself, and inquire if he had read his recently published scientific paper?”
“Lemaître focused more on astronomy and physics. Lemaître described himself as more mathematician than most astronomers and more astronomer than most mathematicians.”
“I wish to take advantage of this occasion to reaffirm my resolution to continue with all my efforts, together with all of you, to serve science. Science is beautiful; it deserves to be loved for itself, as it is a reflection of God’s creative thought.”
“The penultimate space-freighter, ATV-4, was named after Albert Einstein. The fifth and last of the ATVs was the Georges Lemaître, named after the Roman Catholic priest, astronomer, theoretical physicist and mathematician from Belgium who formulated what is now known as the Big Bang Theory.”
“If rethinking God’s thoughts as a scientist appeals to you, then discern your calling with complete assuredness that this may well be how God intends you to live a devout life.”
“Mgr Lemaître probably said it most boldly when he made the declaration, “Science is beautiful; it deserves to be loved for itself, as it is a reflection of God’s creative thought.””
“The Catholic Faith is based on objective truths universally accessible through reason by all peoples, without exception. As the faithful are encouraged to expand their ideas of God by meditating on His creation, so should scientists be encouraged to widen their appreciation of the wonders revealed to them by the microscope and the telescope.”
“So that each and every one may live a full human life and draw ever closer to the ultimate meaning of life, I wish to embolden all people of good will to embrace both religion and science, faith and reason, for they are two sides of the same coin.”
I hope those quotes give you a feel for this excellent volume. This volume is a more academic read than the companion volume. I would say anyone with a secondary education could easily work through it. It does an excellent job of digging in on some men and women who have made major contributions to science, while being people of deep faith.
This book is an excellent read. I am thankful for the work that the CTS does, and for their effort to stay up to date on eBook editions. With my dual form of dyslexia and my son having eye tracking issues I consider them essential, especially with adaptive technology. I am thankful for this volume, and would pick up any future offerings from the pen of Fr Douglas McGonagle. This being the second volume in a new series I would also pick up any in this series that release. I do so hope we are blessed with many more volumes in this series. This is a great read, I can easily recommend it!
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan! For other reviews of books from the Catholic Truth Society click here.
Books by Fr Douglas McGonagle:
