ROME
I met Pope Francis on August 31, 2019, when he met the entire scientific staff of the Vatican Observatory in his private library at the Apostolic palace.
It was a private meeting between the Pope and his astronomers. We introduced ourselves, we shared with him our hopes about our scientific research and the various outreach work we were doing.
What was meant to be a quick 15 minutes meeting before his lunch break turned out to be an hour meeting. He got to know the international nature of the Specola, and he shared quite a few jokes about Jesuits he had known that had worked in the Specola. At the end, he gave us a blessing and a rosary each.
[The writer is a staff member at the Vatican Observatory.]
