Showing posts with label Moon landing. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Pope Leo XIV talks with moon walking astronaut and checks out the Vatican Observatory

Pope Leo XIV marks 56th anniversary of moon landing with observatory visit, call to Buzz Aldrin

Jul 21, 2025

Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on July 20, 2025. (Credit: Vatican Media.)

ROME — Pope Leo XIV marked the 56th anniversary of man’s arrival on the moon Sunday with a visit to the Vatican astronomical observatory in Castel Gandolfo and a call to astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

After praying the Sunday Angelus at his summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, Leo headed to the astronomical observatory located in the Pontifical Villas, where he took a close look at the telescopes that have supported celestial exploration from a faith-based perspective for decades.

The pontiff was accompanied by astronomers and students participating in the traditional summer school organized by the observatory.

This was Pope Leo’s first visit to the observatory, founded in 1891 by Leo XIII. The first vision of it, however, can be traced back to the establishment by Pope Gregory XIII of a commission aimed at studying the scientific data and implications of the calendar reform that took place in 1582.

The Vatican Observatory has generated top-notch research from its scientist-clerics, drawing academics to its meteorite collection, which includes bits of Mars and is considered among the world’s best.

Later Sunday, the pope called astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who shared with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins the historic 1969 moonwalk.

“This evening, 56 years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, I spoke with the astronaut Buzz Aldrin,” Pope Leo wrote on his X account. “Together we shared the memory of a historic feat, a testimony to human ingenuity, and we reflected on the mystery and greatness of Creation.”

Pope Leo then blessed the astronaut, his family and his collaborators.

There are a few precedents of papal calls to “space.”

In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI rang the space station and asked about the future of the planet and the environmental risks it faced.

Before Benedict, Pope Paul VI sent a radio message to astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins after their moonwalk, calling them “conquerors of the Moon.”

Sunday, July 21, 2019

At Sunday Angelus remembering 50th anniversary of man on the moon

POPE

Pope: 50th anniversary of moon landing ‘inspiration for common good'

Pope Francis recalls the first time a person set foot on the moon, expressing hope that achieving this goal might inspire work toward even greater ones.

By Francesca Merlo

“Fifty years ago, yesterday”, Pope Francis said on Sunday, “Man set foot on the moon, achieving an extraordinary dream.”

Addressing the crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square for the Angelus prayer, the Pope expressed his hope that the memory of “that great step for humanity” might spark the desire to reach even “greater goals”.

Those he named were “more dignity for the weak, more justice among peoples, and more future for our common home.”

Pope St. Paul VI, who expressed much interest in space travel and spent lots of time at the Vatican Observatory, was Pope on 20 July 1969. On that night, along with millions worldwide he watched Neil Armstrong become the first man to set foot on the moon.

Fifty years later, Pope Francis has dedicated much of his pontificate to the fight for the rights of those who are most vulnerable in today’s society as well as for the care of our common home.
He has expressed, on numerous occasions, through both words and actions, his desire to help those in need: migrants, the poor, the ill, the elderly and our planet – our common home.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic moon landing, therefore, Pope Francis shared his hopes for the future and that people worldwide might be inspired by this historic achievement to pursue these fights, and to reach, as humankind did 50 years ago, other extraordinary dreams.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Pope Paul VI and the moonlanding; glued to TV, sends blessings to the astronauts

Pope Paul VI watches the moonlanding on television on 20 July 1969

VATICAN

20 July 1969: Pope Paul VI sends blessings to first men on the moon

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 historic moon landing, Vatican Radio brings you the voice of Pope Paul VI sending his blessings to the astronauts who "conquered the moon."

By Veronica Scarisbrick and Linda Bordoni

As millions of men, women and children did across the world on the night of 20 July 1969, Pope Paul VI spent his time glued to the television to watch Neil Armstrong as he became the first man ever to land, and then to walk, on the moon.

50 years after that historic event, scientists agree humanity will have to take another giant step forward to try to equal the achievement and legacy of Apollo 11 and its crew.

The powerful significance of the event was not lost on the Pope of the time who became the first Roman Pontiff to send a message hurtling through space in which he blessed the three astronauts who had just landed on the moon, before sending a congratulatory telegramme to then US President, Richard Nixon.

But as Veronica Scarisbrick notes in this picture in sound, for Pope Paul VI, the moonwalk was a recognition of the “greatness of God's handiwork”, and the moon “the poetic pale lamp of our nights and dreams”.

Listen

“Pope Paul VI is speaking to you astronauts: Honor, greetings and blessings to you, conquerors of the moon.”

For Pope Paul VI,the moonwalk was a recognition of the greatness of God’s handiwork.

The moon itself, he personified poetically as the pale lamp of our nights:

“Pale lamp of our nights and our dreams bring to her with your living presence the voice of the Spirit”.

As the tiny lunar module neared the surface of the moon, scouring the landscape for a safe stretch to touch down on, all over the world people scoured the fuzzy images from space on their television screens, anxious to see what would happen.

Pope Paul was no exception. He too watched the landing from his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo which housed the Vatican Observatory.

And as Neil Armstrong stepped down on the powdery surface of the moon, Pope Paul VI clapped his hands and said: “We are close to you with our good wishes and with our prayers, together the whole Catholic Church”.

Often caught peering at lunar landscapes through the telescope at the Vatican Observatory, Paul VI had always shown a special interest in space travel.

In the very first speech of his pontificate, he said that with the blessing of God, it had opened up new era for humanity, and on a later occasion he had given an astronaut a specially engraved bronze plaque to be laid on the surface of the moon, with the words from a Psalm: “O Lord our God, how great your name throughout the earth”.

In return, he got a piece of the moon, which today is still kept at Castel Gandolfo.

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