Fr. George V. Coyne SJ, who directed the Vatican Observatory for nearly 30 years from 1978 to 2006, died on Tuesday, February 11 at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y where he was being treated for bladder cancer. He was 87 years old.

Fr. Coyne was named director of the Vatican Observatory at the age of 45 — notably he was one of the few appointments made during the brief papacy of John Paul I — after the unexpected death of his predecessor. He served until he was 73, the longest term of any Observatory director.

During his tenure as Observatory director, Fr Coyne oversaw the modernization of the Observatory’s role in the world of science, welcoming onto its staff a number of young Jesuit astronomers from around the world including Africa, Asia, and South America. Under his leadership the Vatican Observatory Research Group was established at the University of Arizona and in collaboration with the University he made possible the construction of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, with the world’s first spin-cast mirror, on Mt. Graham.

Fr. Coyne promoted the dialogue between science and theology at the highest level. In close collaboration with Pope St. John Paul II, in the 1990s he organized a series of conferences on “God’s Action in the Universe” at the Observatory’s headquarters in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, in collaboration with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences of Berkeley, California. A series of proceedings were published by the University of Notre Dame Press. A letter from St. John Paul to George Coyne on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Newton’s Principia was one of the most detailed statements of Catholic theology on the relation between science and faith. He wrote a number of publications on this topic, most notably his book with Alessandro Omizzolo, Wayfarers in the Cosmos: The Human Quest for Meaning.

And with the establishment in 1986 of the biennial Vatican Observatory Summer Schools in astronomy and astrophysics, Fr Coyne advanced the education of a generation of young astronomers, especially from developing countries.

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