Saturday, March 31, 2018

What if ...


Image result for rat

What if
humans are just
nanotechnology
designed by some aliens to
catch rats?

Pax et bonum

Friday, March 30, 2018

Stations of the Cross for Life 2018



 
 
For the 19th year in a row, pro-lifers gathered at McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, N.Y., for a Good Friday prayer service, then a procession while reciting the Stations of the Cross for Life to a nearby doctor's office where abortions are performed. The service and the procession were led by priests, deacons, and women religious. Despite the cold, wet weather this year, a good-sized group of pro-lifers took part. Hopefully, such marches may some day become unnecessary as eyes and hearts are opened to see that abortion is wrong and should no longer be legal.  
 
 
 



Pax et bonum

Jesus is Lord!


Jesus is Lord - A Christian Dada sonnet
                                                 
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus!
Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus!

Pax et bonum

A Catholic Dada Manifesto


Dada grew out of frustration and disillusionment with the world of the World War I era.

The Dadaists saw a war of heretofore unimagined scale. They viewed society as rigid and hypocritical and lifeless. They viewed religion as it was conventionally practiced as something bereft of deeper meaning. They viewed western civilization as something controlled by stale, stifling, impotent ideas.

They called for destruction of those ideas. They called for chaos. They called for rejection of all beliefs. They elevated individualism. They used the absurd, the outrageous, the offensive to challenge the world.

The movement died in recrimination. It died when it dove deep into the chaos and drowned in its own excesses. It died in the Dadaists' own self-worship and shallow thinking. It died in their focus on show rather than substance. It died because it was really just a spasm of the world they were rejecting. It died when it was absorbed by society and the world of art and literature.

We now live in a world where we are at war with our very souls. We live in a world that is rigid and hypocritical in its love of excess – of wealth and sensuality and the worship of the individual.

We live on the fruits of Dada and the civilization that spawned it.

But in Dada, as in all of creation, there is truth.

Dada just needed to be baptized.

The world then and the world now is without meaning if we merely look at it through superficial eyes.

But beneath the stale, the stifling, the impotent, beneath the chaos, lies the truth.

What is truth?

God.

Pilate had the answer standing before him, but he did not see.

And the Dadaists just didn’t dive deep enough in their quest to see him.

What is more absurd in the eyes of the world than belief in a God who so loved the world he sent his only son to die on a cross for us?

What is more absurd than living to serve God rather than gratifying our own cravings?

What is more absurd than self-sacrifice as opposed to serving oneself?

Dada is Calvary.
Dada is transubstantiation.
Dada is the virgin birth.
Dada is the resurrection.
Dada is the Immaculate Conception.
Dada is the Trinity.
Dada is Lourdes.
Dada is Fatima.
Dada is the rosary.
Dada is heaven.
Dada is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Dada is John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.
Dada is Peter as the first pope.
Dada is Francis of Assisi building churches.
Dada is Pope John Paul II embracing his would-be assassin.
Dada is virginity.
Dada is chastity.
Dada is modesty.
Dada is humility.
Dada is simplicity.
Dada is fasting.
Dada is baptism.
Dada is the Eucharist.
Dada is confession and penance.
Dada is Mea Culpa.
Dada is stigmata.
Dada is the cross.

So what we need is a Christian Dada movement. A movement to challenge the soul of the world with our absurd faith.

Dada is Catholicism.
Catholicism is Dada.

Amen the Amen.

Pax et bonum

Thursday, March 29, 2018

A Too-New Church Building


I went to a recently opened church for morning prayers today The new church replaced one that burned down a couple of years ago. Although it is not my parish, I've been a part of that parish's men's group for a while.

It had a not-lived-in-yet feel. No dents. No worn spots. No wobbly kneelers. No occasional Cheerios left under pews by toddlers from last Sunday's Mass.

And it had a fresh paint/stain smell. My asthma was not happy. Not a full blown attack, just that feeling of discomfort.

Too soon.

I like churches that have been used. That have places rubbed and worn. That have years of incense and burning candles in their walls. That perhaps have the touch of years and years of prayers.

I think I'll wait a couple of weeks before going back until the new church airs out and gets an occupied feel.

But the morning prayers - and a rosary after - were nice. And I'll be back for men's group next week - they meet in the school cafeteria where we moved after the church burned and the parish hall where we had met was used for Masses.

The school smells okay, and has a comfortable lived-in feel.

Pax et bonum

Monday, March 26, 2018

Baba Dada contemplates


Image result for Back of old man's head

Baba
Dada sat there
contemplating all the
forensic ambiguity
of life.

Pax et bonum

Sunday, March 25, 2018

After death ...




After
death, the skeptic
discovered while he’d been
focused on his doubts he’d missed
the point.

Pax et bonum

Truth


Image result for french toast

Truth is a translucent sponge.

Pax et bonum

Church Isn't Supposed to be Fun









Pax et bonum

Duke (Dada) - Ride valkyrian dark


Into bards;
To sunset;
Weary it there bullet in blood sing a zane your during your;
Sunset no well-placed only itch it.
Shedding a drinking will even;
By insomniac;
A nights dust sinking baked now ridden ships;
Pyres the by dull-eyed.
Slow and chaffed intermittently sea were.
Far-flung there bookcase crash.
No sun slide of gather;
The not dust fingers young corner of a.
Like long.
Bones a illumined the.
A to towns ramblers.
To saddle are funeral to;
Tales and sweat in;
Songs hidden.
No no told fist like.
Ride valkyrian dark.
Be gray a dust.
Faces worn was.
The copy dragon canyon of are wasn't thirsting;
Like breathing a and own;
Into off.
The no a through

Pax et bonum

Saturday, March 24, 2018

So, are they against guns - and Catholics?




This sign is pretty offensive.

Pax et bonum

Gun march gets estimates - but not March for Life?


I've noticed that a number of main-stream media outlets covering the march against guns today are giving estimates of the number of participants.

But gee, they say they can't estimate the numbers of people in the March for Life each year.

But then, that would not fit their agenda, right?

Pax et bonum

Nobody (Dada)


A you;
Tell then frog;
To public dreary how you the –;
Admiring nobody they’d one’s who of.
– bog! too?;

– –;

Be to – an.

Us! somebody! pair;
You? – know!.

How are june a nobody!;
Name to – there’s;
Are livelong I’m – tell! advertise like – don’t

Pax et bonum

How to make a Dadaist poem


TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM

Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are – an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

- Tristan Tzara

Pax et bonum

So ... Trump approved funding for Planned Parenthood?




By signing the budget he apparently did fund Planned Parenthood again to the tune of $500 million. And he also approved funding for "population control" in other lands.

So much for the GOP siding with pro-lifers.

Pax et bonum

It's a trade war!


Shocking news!

MINAS TIRITH, GONDOR—Kicking off a major trade war between the two kingdoms, the Middle-Earth Trade Federation has announced heavy tariffs on the import of Narnian steel, sending the stock market into a freefall Thursday.

Any steel imported from Narnia to Gondor, Rohan, Erebor, or Mirkwood will be subject to a 30% tax. The move is expected to raise the end consumer price of various imported goods significantly, according to expert economists working at Rivendell. ... 
 
For the full report, go to here  

Who knows what this will do to the price of "Sting" knock-offs.



Pax et bonum

Friday, March 23, 2018

Congress: "Conscience Protection? Ha!"


March 22, 2018
WASHINGTON—Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, chair of the USCCB's Committee for Religious Liberty, reacted with deep disappointment to the news that a very modest but critical piece of legislation—the Conscience Protection Act—was not included in the 2018 appropriations bill just released by Congress.

The full statement follows:

"The failure of Congress to include the Conscience Protection Act in the 2018 omnibus appropriations bill is deeply disappointing. The CPA is an extraordinarily modest bill that proposes almost no change to existing conscience protection laws on abortion—laws that receive wide public and bi-partisan support. The CPA simply proposes to provide victims of discrimination with the ability to defend their rights in court to help ensure that no one is forced to participate in abortion. Those inside and outside of Congress who worked to defeat the CPA have placed themselves squarely into the category of extremists who insist that all Americans must be forced to participate in the violent act of abortion. We call on Congress not to give up until this critical legislation is enacted."

Pax et bonum

Cardinal Dolan says Democrats have abandoned Catholics


Cardinal Dolan says Democrats have abandoned Catholics: In an op-ed published Friday in the Wall Street Journal, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York lamented that the Democratic Party’s shifting principles have effectively shut out and alienated orthodox Catholics.

(I realized this more a decade ago when I finally gave up on the party after being a member for 35 years, and even having served as a party official at one point.)

Pax et bonum

New Budget Funds Planned Parenthood????


If the reports are accurate, the new Federal (massive and almost unreadable) budget once again funds Planned Parenthood.

If that is the case - and several sources say that it is - then the Republicans once again have betrayed their pro-life supporters.

I pray this is incorrect, or that there is something in the works to cut funding.

But as for me, this kind of situation is one reason I am not a registered Republican.

I hate feeling used.

Pax et bonum

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Selah


Oh my
Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of the living God,
have mercy on me, a sinner:
Selah!

Pax et bonum

So ... who do I like?

Image result for Poetry books on a shelf

I was somewhat critical of Rupi Kaur's poetry in a recent post. At least in reading her work people are reading poetry, even if it's not the best, so that's a plus. Hopefully, at least a few of her readers will be inspired to move on to better poets.

But whose poetry do I like?

My two clear favorites are Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. I go back to their poetry again and again.

Other classic poets I regularly read include G. K. Chesterton (I'm a fan of him in general, but recognize his poetry is uneven and not his best work), Gerard Manley Hopkins, E. E. Cummings, Phyllis McGinley, Ogden Nash, and Pablo Neruda.

Among more contemporary poets I like the works of Wendell Berry, Yehuda Amichai, and Seamus Heaney.

I also read a lot of haiku and related forms (Issa and Shiki are particular favorites among the classic poets). Indeed, the only poetry journals to which I subscribe are frogpond, Modern Haiku, Acorn, and, just for the fun of it, Scifaikuest. They feature a number of contemporary haiku poets whose work I enjoy.

And I read any clerihews I can find.

In addition, I am a fan of children's poetry. I have a number of books by Douglas Florian, Myra Cohn Livingston, Jack Prelutsky, Bruce Lansky, Edward Lear, and Kenn Nesbitt.

Finally, there are two poets I read not because they are great poets in the classic sense, but because of who they are or the kind of poetry there write: Helen Steiner Rice and Mattie J. T. Stepanek.

There are other poets I occasionally read, some for school, some just because they caught my attention. But I don't go out of my way to seek their work.

I think before bed I'll read some haiku.

Pax et bonum

Jim Caviezel: 'Be Saints'








Amen!




Pax et bonum

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Rupi Kaur - "the sun and her flowers"


Having seen my local bookstore poetry shelves generously stocked with copies of books by Rupi Kaur, and having seen her mentioned online repeatedly (usually gushingly, with words like "raw" and "intense" and "intimate" bandied about), when I saw a copy of her 2017 book, the sun and her flowers, on the New Books shelf at the library I decided to give her a read.

While there were some interesting lines, I found most of her poetry a little light and derivative, and somewhat cloying.

Indeed, by the time I finished reading the book one name kept popping into my head: Rod McKuen.

Maybe if I was a callow millennial female I might have liked it more, but, alas, I'm a middle-aged male English teacher.

And now, back to Annie Dillard's essays (Teaching a Stone to Talk) and the latest issue of frogpond.

Pax et bonum

Bishop Barron on Jordan Peterson









Pax et bonum

Faith and Science


In the wake of the death of Stephen Hawking, this atheist, and the supposed incompatibility of science and religion, have been topics of discussion.

(My own spin was poetic, with a bit of humor:

Death claims
Stephen Hawking.
Now he finally knows
just Who really was behind the
Big Bang.)

But those who use him and his ideas as a way to place science and religion in opposition are ignoring reality and history.

For example, the father of the Big Bang Theory itself was a priest: Father Georges Lemaitre.

A short list of major scientific figures who were also religious includes:

Father Roger Bacon, Father of the Scientific Method
Friar Gregor Mendel, Father of Genetics
Nicolaus Copernicus (canon, possibly a priest), Founder of the heliocentric planet theory
Ramon Llull (Secular Franciscan), Pioneer of computation theory

Here's a longer list from Wikipedia of just the Scientists/Clerics:



  • José de Acosta (1539–1600) – Jesuit missionary and naturalist who wrote one of the first detailed and realistic descriptions of the new world[6]
  • François d'Aguilon (1567–1617) – Belgian Jesuit mathematician, architect, and physicist, who worked on optics
  • Lorenzo Albacete (1941–2014) – priest, physicist, and theologian
  • Albert of Castile (c. 1460-1522) – Dominican priest and historian.
  • Albert of Saxony (philosopher) (c. 1320–1390) – German bishop known for his contributions to logic and physics; with Buridan he helped develop the theory that was a precursor to the modern theory of inertia[7]
  • Albertus Magnus (c. 1206–1280) – Dominican friar and Bishop of Regensburg who has been described as "one of the most famous precursors of modern science in the High Middle Ages."[8] Patron saint of natural sciences; Works in physics, logic, metaphysics, biology, and psychology.
  • Giulio Alenio (1582–1649) – Jesuit theologian, astronomer and mathematician; was sent to the Far East as a missionary and adopted a Chinese name and customs; wrote 25 books, including a cosmography and a Life of Jesus in Chinese.
  • José María Algué (1856–1930) – priest and meteorologist who invented the barocyclonometer[9]
  • José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799) – priest, scientist, historian, cartographer, and meteorologist who wrote more than thirty treatises on a variety of scientific subjects
  • Francesco Castracane degli Antelminelli (1817–1899) – priest and botanist who was one of the first to introduce microphotography into the study of biology[10]
  • Giovanni Antonelli (1818–1872) – priest and astronomer who served as director of the Ximenian Observatory of Florence
  • Luís Archer (1926-2011) – Portuguese molecular biologist and editor of the journal Brotéria from 1962 to 2002
  • Nicolò Arrighetti (1709–1767) – Jesuit who wrote treatises on light, heat, and electricity
  • Mariano Artigas (1938–2006) – Spanish physicist, philosopher and theologian
  • Giuseppe Asclepi (1706–1776) – Jesuit astronomer and physician who served as director of the Collegio Romano observatory; the lunar crater Asclepi is named after him
  • Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294) – Franciscan friar who made significant contributions to mathematics and optics and has been described as a forerunner of modern scientific method[11]
  • Bernardino Baldi (1533–1617) – abbot, mathematician, and writer
  • Eugenio Barsanti (1821–1864) – Piarist, possible inventor of the internal combustion engine[12]
  • Bartholomeus Amicus (1562–1649) – Jesuit, wrote on philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and the concept of vacuum and its relationship with God
  • Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685) – Bartoli and fellow Jesuit astronomer Niccolò Zucchi are credited as probably having been the first to see the equatorial belts on the planet Jupiter[13][14]
  • Joseph Bayma (1816–1892) – Jesuit known for work in stereochemistry and mathematics
  • Giacopo Belgrado (1704–1789) – Jesuit professor of mathematics and physics and court mathematician who did experimental work in electricity
  • Michel Benoist (1715–1774) – missionary to China and scientist
  • Mario Bettinus (1582–1657) – Jesuit philosopher, mathematician and astronomer; lunar crater Bettinus named after him
  • Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named
  • Jacques de Billy (1602–1679) – Jesuit who has produced a number of results in number theory which have been named after him; published several astronomical tables; the crater Billy on the Moon is named after him
  • Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) – Cistercian botanist who contributed to the fields of medicine and toxicology
  • Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) – priest, mathematician, and logician whose other interests included metaphysics, ideas, sensation, and truth
  • Anselmus de Boodt (1550–1632) – Canon who was one of the founders of mineralogy
  • Theodoric Borgognoni (1205–1298) – Dominican friar, Bishop of Cervia, and medieval Surgeon who made important contributions to antiseptic practice and anaesthetics
  • Christopher Borrus (1583–1632) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomy who made observations on the magnetic variation of the compass
  • Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) – Jesuit polymath known for his contributions to modern atomic theory and astronomy and for devising perhaps the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position[15]
  • Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) – Jesuit sinologist and cartographer who did his work in China
  • Michał Boym (c. 1612–1659) – Jesuit who was one of the first westerners to travel within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous works on Asian fauna, flora and geography
  • Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290–1349) – Archbishop of Canterbury and mathematician who helped develop the mean speed theorem; one of the Oxford Calculators
  • Martin Stanislaus Brennan (1845–1927) – priest and astronomer who wrote several books about science
  • Henri Breuil (1877–1961) – priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist
  • Jan Brożek (1585–1652) – Polish canon, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and physician; the most prominent Polish mathematician of the 17th century
  • Louis-Ovide Brunet (1826–1876) – priest, one of the founding fathers of Canadian botany
  • Ismaël Bullialdus (1605–1694) – priest, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society; the Bullialdus crater is named in his honor
  • Jean Buridan (c. 1300 – after 1358) – priest who formulated early ideas of momentum and inertial motion and sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe
  • Roberto Busa (1913–2011) – Jesuit, wrote a lemmatization of the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Index Thomisticus) which was later digitalized by IBM

C[edit]

  • Niccolò Cabeo (1586–1650) – Jesuit mathematician; the crater Cabeus is named in his honor
  • Nicholas Callan (1799–1846) – priest and Irish scientist best known for his work on the induction coil
  • John Cantius (1390–1473) – priest and Buridanist mathematical physicist who further developed the theory of impetus
  • Jean Baptiste Carnoy (1836–1899) – priest, has been called the founder of the science of cytology[16]
  • Giovanni di Casali (died c. 1375) – Franciscan friar who provided a graphical analysis of the motion of accelerated bodies
  • Paolo Casati (1617–1707) – Jesuit mathematician who wrote on astronomy, meteorology, and vacuums; the crater Casatus on the Moon is named after him; published Terra machinis mota (1658), a dialogue between Galileo, Paul Guldin and father Marin Mersenne on cosmology, geography, astronomy and geodesy, giving a positive image of Galileo 25 years after his conviction.
  • Laurent Cassegrain (1629–1693) – priest who was the probable namesake of the Cassegrain telescope; the crater Cassegrain on the Moon is named after him
  • Louis Bertrand Castel (1688-1757) – French Jesuit physicist who worked on gravity and optics in a Cartesian context
  • Benedetto Castelli (1578–1643) – Benedictine mathematician; long-time friend and supporter of Galileo Galilei, who was his teacher; wrote an important work on fluids in motion
  • Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598–1647) – Jesuate (not to be confused with Jesuit) known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy; his principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus; the lunar crater Cavalerius is named in his honor
  • Antonio José Cavanilles (1745–1804) – priest and leading Spanish taxonomic botanist of the 18th century
  • Francesco Cetti (1726–1778) – Jesuit zoologist and mathematician
  • Tommaso Ceva (1648–1737) – Jesuit mathematician, poet, and professor who wrote treatises on geometry, gravity, and arithmetic
  • Christopher Clavius (1538–1612) – German mathematician and astronomer, most noted in connection with the Gregorian calendar, his arithmetic books were used by many mathematicians including Leibniz and Descartes
  • Guy Consolmagno (1952–) – Jesuit astronomer and planetary scientist, serving as Director of the Vatican Observatory
  • Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) – Renaissance astronomer and canon famous for his heliocentric cosmology that set in motion the Copernican Revolution
  • Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718) – Franciscan cosmographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, and globe-maker
  • Bonaventura Corti (1729-1813) – Italian biologist and physicist who made microscopic observations on Tremels, Rotifers and seaweeds
  • George Coyne (1933–) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory whose research interests have been in polarimetric studies of various subjects, including Seyfert galaxies
  • James Cullen (mathematician) (1867–1933) – Jesuit mathematician who published what is now known as Cullen numbers in number theory
  • James Curley (astronomer) (1796–1889) – Jesuit, first director of Georgetown Observatory and determined the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C.
  • Albert Curtz (1600–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who expanded on the works of Tycho Brahe and contributed to early understanding of the moon; the crater Curtius on the Moon is named after him
  • Johann Baptist Cysat (1587–1657) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, after whom the lunar crater Cysatus is named; published the first printed European book concerning Japan; one of the first to make use of the newly developed telescope; did important research on comets and the Orion nebula
  • Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche (1722–1769) – priest and astronomer best known for his observations of the transits of Venus

D[edit]

  • Ignazio Danti (1536–1586) – Dominican mathematician, astronomer, cosmographer, and cartographer
  • Armand David (1826–1900) – Lazarist priest, zoologist, and botanist who did important work in these fields in China
  • Francesco Denza (1834–1894) – Barnabite meteorologist, astronomer, and director of Vatican Observatory
  • Václav Prokop Diviš (1698–1765) – Czech priest who studied electrical phenomenons and constructed, among other inventions, the first electrified musical instrument in history
  • Alberto Dou Mas de Xaxàs (1915–2009) – Spanish Jesuit priest who was president of the Royal Society of Mathematics, member of the Royal Academy of Natural, Physical, and Exact Sciences, and one of the foremost mathematicians of his country
  • Johann Dzierzon (1811–1906) – priest and pioneering apiarist who discovered the phenomenon of parthenogenesis among bees, and designed the first successful movable-frame beehive; has been described as the "father of modern apiculture"

F[edit]

  • Francesco Faà di Bruno (c. 1825–1888) – priest and mathematician beatified by Pope John Paul II
  • Honoré Fabri (1607–1688) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist
  • Jean-Charles de la Faille (1597–1652) – Jesuit mathematician who determined the center of gravity of the sector of a circle for the first time
  • Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) – Canon and one of the most important anatomists and physicians of the sixteenth century; the Fallopian tubes, which extend from the uterus to the ovaries, are named for him
  • Gyula Fényi (1845–1927) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Haynald Observatory; noted for his observations of the sun; the crater Fényi on the Moon is named after him
  • Louis Feuillée (1660–1732) – Minim explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist
  • Kevin T. FitzGerald (1955-) – American molecular biologist and holds the Dr. David Lauler chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics at Georgetown University
  • Placidus Fixlmillner (1721–1791) – Benedictine priest and one of the first astronomers to compute the orbit of Uranus
  • Paolo Frisi (1728–1784) – priest, mathematician, and astronomer who did significant work in hydraulics
  • José Gabriel Funes (1963– ) – Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory
  • Lorenzo Fazzini (1787–1837) – priest and physicist born in Vieste and working in Neaples

G[edit]

  • Joseph Galien (1699 – c. 1762) – Dominican professor who wrote on aeronautics, hailstorms, and airships
  • Jean Gallois (1632–1707) – French scholar, abbot, and member of Académie des Sciences
  • Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) – French priest, astronomer, and mathematician who published the first data on the transit of Mercury; best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity
  • Antoine Gaubil (1689-1759) – French astronomer who was the director general of the College of Interpreters at the court of China between 1741 and 1759 and centralized information provided by the Jesuit observatories throughout the world
  • Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) – Franciscan physician and psychologist; founded Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan
  • Johannes von Gmunden (c. 1380–1442) – Canon, mathematician, and astronomer who compiled astronomical tables; Asteroid 15955 Johannesgmunden named in his honor
  • Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700) – priest, polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer; drew the first map of all of New Spain
  • Andrew Gordon (1712–1751) – Benedictine monk, physicist, and inventor who made the first electric motor
  • Christoph Grienberger (1561–1636) – Jesuit astronomer after whom the crater Gruemberger on the Moon is named; verified Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons.
  • Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663) – Jesuit who discovered the diffraction of light (indeed coined the term "diffraction"), investigated the free fall of objects, and built and used instruments to measure geological features on the moon
  • Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 – 1253) – bishop who was one of the most knowledgeable men of the Middle Ages; has been called "the first man ever to write down a complete set of steps for performing a scientific experiment"[17]
  • Paul Guldin (1577–1643) – Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who discovered the Guldinus theorem to determine the surface and the volume of a solid of revolution
  • Bartolomeu de Gusmão (1685–1724) – Jesuit known for his early work on lighter-than-air airship design

H[edit]

  • Johann Georg Hagen (1847–1930) – Jesuit director of the Georgetown and Vatican Observatories; the crater Hagen on the Moon is named after him
  • Frank Haig (1928-) – American physics professor
  • Nicholas Halma (1755–1828) – French abbot, mathematician, and translator
  • Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706) – French priest, natural philosopher, and secretary of the Academie Royale des Sciences
  • René Just Haüy (1743–1822) – priest known as the father of crystallography
  • Maximilian Hell (1720–1792) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory who wrote astronomy tables and observed the Transit of Venus; the crater Hell on the Moon is named after him
  • Michał Heller (1936– ) – Polish priest, Templeton Prize winner, and prolific writer on numerous scientific topics
  • Lorenz Hengler (1806–1858) – priest often credited as the inventor of the horizontal pendulum
  • Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) – Benedictine historian, music theorist, astronomer, and mathematician
  • Pierre Marie Heude (1836–1902) – Jesuit missionary and zoologist who studied the natural history of Eastern Asia
  • Franz von Paula Hladnik (1773–1844) – priest and botanist who discovered several new kinds of plants, and certain genera have been named after him
  • Giovanni Battista Hodierna (1597–1660) – priest and astronomer who catalogued nebulous objects and developed an early microscope
  • Johann Baptiste Horvath (1732-1799) – Hungarian physicist who taught physics and philosophy at the University of Tyrnau, later of Buda, and wrote many Newtonian textbooks
  • Victor-Alphonse Huard (1853–1929) – priest, naturalist, educator, writer, and promoter of the natural sciences

I[edit]

  • Maximus von Imhof (1758–1817) – German Augustinian physicist and director of the Munich Academy of Sciences
  • Giovanni Inghirami (1779–1851) – Italian Piarist astronomer who has a valley on the moon named after him as well as a crater

J[edit]

  • François Jacquier (1711–1788) – Franciscan mathematician and physicist; at his death he was connected with nearly all the great scientific and literary societies of Europe
  • Stanley Jaki (1924–2009) – Benedictine priest and prolific writer who wrote on the relationship between science and theology
  • Ányos Jedlik (1800–1895) – Benedictine engineer, physicist, and inventor; considered by Hungarians and Slovaks to be the unsung father of the dynamo and electric motor

K[edit]

  • Georg Joseph Kamel (1661–1706) – Jesuit missionary and botanist who established the first pharmacy in the Philippines; the genus Camellia is named for him
  • Karl Kehrle (1898–1996) – Benedictine Monk of Buckfast Abbey, England; beekeeper; world authority on bee breeding, developer of the Buckfast bee
  • Eusebio Kino (1645–1711) – Jesuit missionary, mathematician, astronomer and cartographer; drew maps based on his explorations first showing that California was not an island, as then believed; published an astronomical treatise in Mexico City of his observations of the Kirsch comet
  • Otto Kippes (1905–1994) – priest acknowledged for his work in asteroid orbit calculations; the main belt asteroid 1780 Kippes was named in his honour
  • Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) – Jesuit who has been called the father of Egyptology and "Master of a hundred arts"; wrote an encyclopedia of China; one of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope; in his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658 he noted the presence of "little worms" or "animalcules" in the blood, and concluded that the disease was caused by micro-organisms; this is antecedent to germ theory
  • Wenceslas Pantaleon Kirwitzer (1588–1626) – Jesuit astronomer and missionary to China who published observations of comets
  • Jan Krzysztof Kluk (1739–1796) – priest, naturalist agronomist, and entomologist who wrote a multi-volume work on Polish animal life
  • Marian Wolfgang Koller (1792–1866) – Benedictine professor who wrote on astronomy, physics, and meteorology
  • Franz Xaver Kugler (1862–1929) – Jesuit chemist, mathematician, and Assyriologist who is most noted for his studies of cuneiform tablets and Babylonian astronomy

L[edit]

  • Ramon Llull (ca. 1232 – ca. 1315) – Majorcan writer and philosopher, logician and a Franciscan tertiary considered a pioneer of computation theory
  • Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) – French deacon and astronomer noted for cataloguing stars, nebulous objects, and constellations
  • Eugene Lafont (1837–1908) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and founder of the first Scientific Society in India
  • Antoine de Laloubère (1600–1664) – Jesuit and first mathematician to study the properties of the helix
  • Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) – Oratorian philosopher and mathematician who wrote on the parallelogram of forces
  • Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) – priest and entomologist whose works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today
  • Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) – Belgian priest and father of the Big Bang theory
  • Émile Licent (1876–1952) – French Jesuit trained as a natural historian; spent more than 25 years researching in Tianjin, China
  • Joseph Xaver Liesganig (1719-1799) – Austrian astronomer and geodesist who managed the Jesuit observatory in Vienna between 1756 and 1773
  • Thomas Linacre (c. 1460–1524) – English priest, humanist, translator, and physician
  • Francis Line (1595–1675) – Jesuit magnetic clock and sundial maker who disagreed with some of the findings of Newton and Boyle
  • Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606–1682) – Cistercian who wrote on a variety of scientific subjects, including probability theory
  • João de Loureiro (1717–1791) – Portuguese mathematician and botanist active in Cochinchina

M[edit]

  • Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) – Benedictine monk and scholar, considered the founder of palaeography and diplomatics
  • James B. Macelwane (1883–1956) – Jesuit seismologist who contributed a volume to the first textbook on seismology in America
  • John MacEnery (1797–1841) – archaeologist who investigated the Palaeolithic remains at Kents Cavern
  • Manuel Magri (1851–1907) – Jesuit ethnographer, archaeologist and writer; one of Malta's pioneers in archaeology
  • Emmanuel Maignan (1601–1676) – Minim physicist and professor of medicine who published works on gnomonics and perspective
  • Pal Mako (1724-1793) – Hungarian mathematician and physicist who taught mathematics, experimental physics and mechanics at the Vienna Theresianum and had a part in the preparation of the Ratio educationis (1777), which reformed the imperial teaching system in the spirit of Enlightenment
  • Charles Malapert (1581–1630) – Jesuit writer, astronomer, and proponent of Aristotelian cosmology; also known for observations of sunpots, the lunar surface, and the southern sky; the crater Malapert on the Moon is named after him
  • Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) – Oratorian philosopher who studied physics, optics, and the laws of motion and disseminated the ideas of Descartes and Leibniz
  • Marcin of Urzędów (c. 1500–1573) – priest, physician, pharmacist, and botanist
  • Joseph Maréchal (1878–1944) – Jesuit philosopher and psychologist
  • Marie-Victorin (1885–1944) – Christian Brother and botanist best known as the father of the Jardin botanique de Montréal
  • Edme Mariotte (c. 1620–1684) – priest and physicist who recognized Boyle's Law and wrote about the nature of color
  • Francesco Maurolico (1494–1575) – Benedictine who made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy, and gave the first known proof by mathematical induction
  • Christian Mayer (astronomer) (1719–1783) – Jesuit astronomer most noted for pioneering the study of binary stars
  • James Robert McConnell (1915–1999) – Irish theoretical physicist, pontifical academician, Monsignor
  • Michael C. McFarland (1948-) – American computer scientist and president of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts
  • Paul McNally (1890–1955) – Jesuit astronomer and director of Georgetown Observatory; the crater McNally on the Moon is named after him
  • Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) – Augustinian monk and father of genetics
  • Pietro Mengoli (1626–1686) – priest and mathematician who first posed the famous Basel Problem
  • Giuseppe Mercalli (1850–1914) – priest, volcanologist, and director of the Vesuvius Observatory who is best remembered today for his Mercalli scale for measuring earthquakes which is still in use
  • Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) – Minim philosopher, mathematician, and music theorist, so-called "father of acoustics"
  • Paul of Middelburg (1446–1534) – Bishop who wrote on the reform of the calendar
  • Maciej Miechowita (1457–1523) – Canon who wrote the first accurate geographical and ethnographical description of Eastern Europe, as well as two medical treatises
  • François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno (1804–1884) – Jesuit physicist and mathematician; was an expositor of science and translator rather than an original investigator
  • Juan Ignacio Molina (1740–1829) – Jesuit naturalist, historian, botanist, ornithologist and geographer
  • Louis Moréri (1643–1680) – 17th-century priest and encyclopaedist
  • Theodorus Moretus (1602–1667) – Jesuit mathematician and author of the first mathematical dissertations ever defended in Prague; the lunar crater Moretus is named after him
  • Landell de Moura (1861–1928) – priest and inventor who was the first to accomplish the transmission of the human voice by a wireless machine
  • Gabriel Mouton (1618–1694) – abbot, mathematician, astronomer, and early proponent of the metric system
  • Jozef Murgaš (1864–1929) – priest who contributed to wireless telegraphy and helped develop mobile communications and wireless transmission of information and human voice
  • José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808) – Canon, botanist, and mathematician who led the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New World

N[edit]


O[edit]

  • Hugo Obermaier (1877–1946) – priest, prehistorian, and anthropologist who is known for his work on the diffusion of mankind in Europe during the Ice Age, as well as his work with north Spanish cave art
  • William of Ockham (c. 1288 – c. 1348) – Franciscan Scholastic who wrote significant works on logic, physics, and theology; known for Occam's razor-principle
  • Nicole Oresme (c. 1323–1382) – one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the later Middle Ages; economist, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher, theologian and Bishop of Lisieux, and competent translator; one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century
  • Barnaba Oriani (1752–1832) – Barnabite geodesist, astronomer and scientist whose greatest achievement was his detailed research of the planet Uranus; also known for Oriani's theorem

P[edit]

  • Tadeusz Pacholczyk (1965–) – priest, neuroscientist and writer
  • Luca Pacioli (c. 1446–1517) – Franciscan friar who published several works on mathematics; often regarded as the "father of accounting"
  • Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) – Jesuit physicist known for his correspondence with Newton and Descartes
  • Franciscus Patricius (1529–1597) – priest, cosmic theorist, philosopher, and Renaissance scholar
  • John Peckham (1230–1292) – Archbishop of Canterbury and early practitioner of experimental science
  • Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637) – abbot and astromer who discovered the Orion Nebula; lunar crater Peirescius named in his honor
  • Stephen Joseph Perry (1833–1889) – Jesuit astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society; made frequent observations of Jupiter's satellites, of stellar occultations, of comets, of meteorites, of sun spots, and faculae
  • Giambattista Pianciani (1784–1862) – Jesuit mathematician and physicist who established the electric nature of aurora borealis
  • Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) – Theatine mathematician and astronomer who discovered Ceres, today known as the largest member of the asteroid belt; also did important work cataloguing stars
  • Jean Picard (1620–1682) – priest and first person to measure the size of the Earth to a reasonable degree of accuracy; also developed what became the standard method for measuring the right ascension of a celestial object; the PICARD mission, an orbiting solar observatory, is named in his honor
  • Edward Pigot (1858–1929) – Jesuit seismologist and astronomer
  • Alexandre Guy Pingré (1711–1796) – French priest astronomer and naval geographer; the crater Pingré on the Moon is named after him, as is the asteroid 12719 Pingré
  • Andrew Pinsent (1966–) – priest whose current research includes the application of insights from autism and social cognition to 'second-person' accounts of moral perception and character formation; his previous scientific research contributed to the DELPHI experiment at CERN
  • Jean Baptiste François Pitra (1812–1889) – Benedictine cardinal, archaeologist and theologian who noteworthy for his great archaeological discoveries
  • Charles Plumier (1646–1704) – Minim friar who is considered one of the most important botanical explorers of his time
  • Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt (1728–1810) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician; granted the title of the King's Astronomer; the crater Poczobutt on the Moon is named after him; taught astronomy at Vilna University (1764-1808), managed its observatory and was the rector of Vilna University between 1777 and 1808
  • Léon Abel Provancher (1820–1892) – priest and naturalist devoted to the study and description of the fauna and flora of Canada; his pioneer work won for him the appellation of the "father of natural history in Canada"

R[edit]

  • Claude Rabuel (1669–1729) – Jesuit mathematician who analyzed Descartes's Géométrie
  • Louis Receveur (1757–1788) – Franciscan naturalist and astronomer; described as being as close as one could get to being an ecologist in the 18th century
  • Franz Reinzer (1661–1708) – Jesuit who wrote an in-depth meteorological, astrological, and political compendium covering topics such as comets, meteors, lightning, winds, fossils, metals, bodies of water, and subterranean treasures and secrets of the earth
  • Louis Rendu (1789–1859) – bishop who wrote an important book on the mechanisms of glacial motion; the Rendu Glacier, Alaska, US and Mount Rendu, Antarctica are named for him
  • Vincenzo Riccati (1707–1775) – Italian Jesuit mathematician and physicist
  • Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) – one of the founding fathers of the Jesuit China Mission and co-author of the first European-Chinese dictionary
  • Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671) – Jesuit astronomer who authored Almagestum novum, an influential encyclopedia of astronomy; the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body; created a selenograph with Father Grimaldi that now adorns the entrance at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.; first to note that Mizar was a "double star"
  • Richard of Wallingford (1292–1336) – abbot, renowned clockmaker, and one of the initiators of western trigonometry
  • Lluis Rodés (1881-1939) – Spanish astronomer and director of Observatorio del Ebro, wrote El Frmamento
  • Johannes Ruysch (c. 1460–1533) – priest, explorer, cartographer, and astronomer who created the second oldest known printed representation of the New World

S[edit]

  • Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri (1667–1733) – Jesuit mathematician and geometer who was perhaps the first European to write about Non-Euclidean geometry
  • Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256) – Irish monk and astronomer who wrote the authoritative medieval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera; his Algorismus was the first text to introduce Hindu-Arabic numerals and procedures into the European university curriculum; the lunar crater Sacrobosco is named after him
  • Gregoire de Saint-Vincent (1584–1667) – Jesuit mathematician who made important contributions to the study of the hyperbola
  • Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa (1618–1667) – Jesuit mathematician who contributed to the understanding of logarithms
  • Christoph Scheiner (c. 1573–1650) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and inventor of the pantograph; wrote on a wide range of scientific subjects, including sunspots, leading to a dispute with Galileo Galilei
  • Wilhelm Schmidt (linguist) (1868–1954) – Austrian priest, linguist, anthropologist, and ethnologist
  • George Schoener (1864–1941) – priest who became known in the United States as the "Padre of the Roses" for his experiments in rose breeding
  • Gaspar Schott (1608–1666) – Jesuit physicist, astronomer, and natural philosopher who is most widely known for his works on hydraulic and mechanical instruments
  • Franz Paula von Schrank (1747–1835) – priest, botanist, entomologist, and prolific writer
  • Berthold Schwarz (c. 14th century) – Franciscan friar and reputed inventor of gunpowder and firearms
  • Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita (1604–1660) – Capuchin astronomer and optician who built Kepler's telescope
  • George Mary Searle (1839–1918) – Paulist astronomer and professor who discovered six galaxies
  • Angelo Secchi (1818–1878) – Jesuit pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy and one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the sun is a star; discovered the existence of solar spicules and drew an early map of Mars
  • Alessandro Serpieri (1823–1885) – priest, astronomer, and seismologist who studied shooting stars, and was the first to introduce the concept of the seismic radiant
  • Gerolamo Sersale (1584–1654) – Jesuit astronomer and selenographer; his map of the moon can be seen in the Naval Observatory of San Fernando; the lunar crater Sirsalis is named after him
  • Benedict Sestini (1816–1890) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician and architect; studied sunspots and eclipses; wrote textbooks on a variety of mathematical subjects
  • René François Walter de Sluse (1622–1685) – Canon and mathematician with a family of curves named after him
  • Domingo de Soto (1494–1560) – Spanish Dominican priest and professor at the University of Salamanca; in his commentaries to Aristotle he proposed that free falling bodies undergo constant acceleration
  • Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799) – priest, biologist, and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially discovered echolocation; his research of biogenesis paved the way for the investigations of Louis Pasteur
  • Valentin Stansel (1621–1705) – Jesuit astronomer in Brazil, who discovered a comet, which, after accurate positions were made via F. de Gottignies in Goa, became known as the Estancel-Gottignies comet
  • Johan Stein (1871–1951) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, which he modernized and relocated to Castel Gandolfo; the crater Stein on the far side of the Moon is named after him
  • Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) – Bishop beatified by Pope John Paul II who is often called the father of geology[18] and stratigraphy,[8] and is known for Steno's principles
  • Joseph Stepling (1716-1778) – Bohemian astronomer, physicist and mathematician who managed the Jesuit observatory in Prague between 1751 and 1778
  • Pope Sylvester II (c. 946–1003) – Prolific scholar who endorsed and promoted Arabic knowledge of arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy in Europe, reintroducing the abacus and armillary sphere which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era
  • Alexius Sylvius Polonus (1593 – c. 1653) – Jesuit astronomer who studied sunspots and published a work on calendariography
  • Ignacije Szentmartony (1718–1793) – Jesuit cartographer and royal mathematician and astronomer, who became a member of the expedition that worked on the rearrangement of the frontiers among colonies in South America, especially Brazil

T[edit]

  • André Tacquet (1612–1660) – Jesuit mathematician whose work laid the groundwork for the eventual discovery of calculus
  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) – Jesuit paleontologist and geologist who took part in the discovery of Peking Man
  • Francesco Lana de Terzi (c. 1631–1687) – Jesuit referred to as the Father of Aviation[19] for his pioneering efforts; he also developed a blind writing alphabet prior to Braille.
  • Theodoric of Freiberg (c. 1250 – c. 1310) – Dominican theologian and physicist who gave the first correct geometrical analysis of the rainbow
  • Joseph Tiefenthaler (1710–1785) – Jesuit who was one of the earliest European geographers to write about India
  • Giuseppe Toaldo (1719–1797) – priest and physicist who studied atmospheric electricity and did important work with lightning rods; the asteroid 23685 Toaldo is named for him
  • José Torrubia (c. 1700–1768) – Franciscan linguist, scientist, collector of fossils and books, and writer on historical, political and religious subjects
  • Franz de Paula Triesnecker (1745–1817) – Jesuit astronomer and director of the Vienna Observatory; published a number of treatises on astronomy and geography; the crater Triesnecker on the Moon is named after him

V[edit]

  • Luca Valerio (1552–1618) – Jesuit mathematician who developed ways to find volumes and centers of gravity of solid bodies
  • Pierre Varignon (1654–1722) – priest and mathematician whose principle contributions were to statics and mechanics; created a mechanical explanation of gravitation
  • Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–1782) – French Minim friar inventor and artist who was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative automata and machines such as the first completely automated loom
  • Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746–1822) – priest who discovered the Venturi effect
  • Fausto Veranzio (c. 1551–1617) – Bishop, polymath, inventor, and lexicographer
  • Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) – Jesuit astronomer and mathematician; designed what some claim to be the first ever self-propelled vehicle, which many claim this as the world's first automobile
  • Francesco de Vico (1805–1848) – Jesuit astronomer who discovered or co-discovered a number of comets; also made observations of Saturn and the gaps in its rings; the lunar crater De Vico and the asteroid 20103 de Vico are named after him
  • Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190–c.1264) – Dominican who wrote the most influential encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
  • Benito Vines (1837–1893) – Jesuit meteorologist known as "Father Hurricane" who made the first weather model to predict the trajectory of a hurricane[20][21][22]
  • János Vitéz (archbishop) (c.1405–1472) – Cardinal Archbishop of Esztergom, astronomer, and mathematician
  • Giovanni Serafino Volta (1764-1842) – Priest and paleontologist who wrote the first treatise on fossil ichthyology in Italy

W[edit]

  • Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470–1520) – German priest and cartographer who, along with Matthias Ringmann, is credited with the first recorded usage of the word America
  • Erich Wasmann (1859–1931) – Austrian entomologist known for Wasmannian mimicry
  • Godefroy Wendelin (1580–1667) – priest and astronomer who recognized that Kepler's third law applied to the satellites of Jupiter; the lunar crater Vendelinus is named in his honor
  • Johannes Werner (1468–1522) – priest, mathematician, astronomer, and geographer
  • Witelo (c. 1230 – after 1280, before 1314) – Friar, physicist, natural philosopher, and mathematician; lunar crater Vitello named in his honor; his Perspectiva powerfully influenced later scientists, in particular Johannes Kepler
  • Julian Tenison Woods (1832–1889) – Passionist geologist and mineralogist
  • Theodor Wulf (1868–1946) – Jesuit physicist who was one of the first experimenters to detect excess atmospheric radiation
  • Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) – Jesuit botanist, mineralogist, and alpinist

X[edit]

  • Leonardo Ximenes (1711-1786) – Italian physicist and astronomer, specialist of hydraulics, creator and director of the Observatory San Giovanino in Florence

Z[edit]

  • John Zahm (1851–1921) – Holy Cross priest and South American explorer
  • Giuseppe Zamboni (1776–1846) – priest and physicist who invented the Zamboni pile, an early electric battery similar to the Voltaic pile
  • Francesco Zantedeschi (1797–1873) – priest who was among the first to recognize the marked absorption by the atmosphere of red, yellow, and green light; published papers on the production of electric currents in closed circuits by the approach and withdrawal of a magnet, thereby anticipating Michael Faraday's classical experiments of 1831[23]
  • Niccolò Zucchi (1586–1670) – claimed to have tried to build a reflecting telescope in 1616 but abandoned the idea (maybe due to the poor quality of the mirror);[24] may have been the first to see the belts on the planet Jupiter (1630)[25]
  • Giovanni Battista Zupi (c. 1590–1650) – Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and first person to discover that the planet Mercury had orbital phases; the crater Zupus on the Moon is named after him







Pax et bonum