Erich Wasmann, SJ, was born in 1859, in Tyrol, Austria, the same year Charles Darwin published his seminal work, “On the Origin of Species.” Wasmann is renowned for his efforts to reconcile the Catholic faith with Darwin’s theory of evolution, advocating the idea that the two were compatible.
In 1883, Wasmann was asked to contribute articles on eusocial insects to the Jesuit periodical “Stimmen aus Maria Laach,” later called “Stimmen der Zeit”. In 1884, he began studying ants, both in their natural habitat and by constructing artificial ant colonies. Over his lifetime (he died in 1931), Wasmann assembled a unique collection comprising over 1,000 ant species, 200 termite species, and 2,000 species of myrmecophiles, ultimately describing 933 new species.
The astronomer and Jesuit Priest Pietro Angelo Secchi (29 June 1818 – 26 February 1878) was one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the Sun is a star. During a solar eclipse , on 18 July 1860, he demonstrated the existence of solar corona. Secchi also made the first spectral classification of the stars. In 1848, due to the Roman Revolution, the Jesuits had to leave Rome. Fr. Secchi spent the next two years in the United Kingdom at Stonyhurst College, and the United States, where he taught for a time at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He also took his doctoral examination in theology there. He returned to Rome in 1850 and was Director of the Observatory at the Pontifical Gregorian University (then called the Roman College) for 28 years. With his popularization and scientific writings, he contributed to the development of a Christian-inspired dimension of science.
Pietro Angelo Secchi, SJ: Jesuit astronomer known for his collaborations and theistic philosophy.
We also provide information on two great companions of Matteo Ricci in the China mission, another Jesuit: Johann Adam Schall von Bell, SJ: Jesuit missionary who was appointed a Mandarin on the official Chinese calendar reform; and a convert to the Catholic faith: Xu “Paul” Guangqi: a governor, agricultural scientist and mathematician.
And there is more: a few days ago, we shared on facebook and twitter this image prepared by the Vatican Observatory astronomer Br. Bob Macke SJ on a selection of asteroids named for Jesuits:
Father Chris Corbally SJ becomes the 11th astronomer with an asteroid named after him.
“I’m not a kind of an asteroid guy” like some of his colleagues at the observatory, he said. “For me it came a as complete surprise. That’s why it’s kind of nice.”
The particular asteroid, designated 119248 Corbally, is about a mile across in size. It was discovered 10 September 2001, by Roy Tucker, a recently retired senior engineer from the Imaging Technology Laboratory at the University of Arizona.
Born in London, Father Corbally, 74, has been on the Vatican Observatory staff since 1983. He joined the observatory after completing a doctorate degree in astronomy from the University of Toronto. He was vice director of the Vatican Observatory Research Group until 2012.
Father Corbally has a wide range of research interests. They have spanned multiple star systems, stellar spectral classification, activity in solar-type stars, galactic structure and star formation regions and telescope technology.
The Chinese calendar was entrusted to official astronomers in the “Board of Mathematics”, composed of 200 members in this board, and divided into several sections. It was their duty to make known in advance the astronomical situation for the whole year, the days of new and full moons, movements of the sun with the dates of its entrance into each of the twenty-eight constellations forming the Chinese zodiac, the times of the solstices and equinoxes, and the beginnings of seasons, the positions and conjunctions of planets, finally, and especially, eclipses of the moon and the sun. For these announcements the Chinese had several empirical rules, inherited from their ancestors, and especially those which the Muslim astronomers had brought to China during the Yuen, or Mongol dynasty. These rules were insufficient to prevent errors and sometimes serious faults, and, having no scientific principle, the Chinese astronomers were incapable of discovering the defects of their methods and calculations, far less correcting them. Already Father Matteo Ricci SJ – the founder of the mission – had seen that this was a unique opportunity for the missionaries to render a service and thus to strengthen their position in China. Father Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666) who had entered the Jesuits in 1611 and arrived in China in 1619, was called in 1630 to Bejing to work as an astronomer on the reform of the Chinese calendar.Continue reading
Mappa Viceprovinciae Societatis Iesu Maragnonii anno MDCCLIII concinnata, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
Ignacije Szentmartony (28 October 1718 – 15 April 1793) was a Croatian Jesuit priest, missionary, mathematician, astronomer and explorer.
After graduating from secondary school he entered the order of Jesuits in Vienna in 1735. He studied in Vienna and Graz, (Austria) where he also lectured mathematics. By the year 1751, he was in Lisbon, Portugal where he obtained the title of royal mathematician and astronomer. With those credentials, he became a member of an expedition that worked on the rearrangement of the frontiers among Portuguese and Spanish colonies in South America.
In 1753, he sailed for Brazil into the very mouth of the Amazon River. Based on his surveys, Lorenz Kaulen made in 1753 a map of Maranhão district titled Mappa Viceprovinciae Societatis Iesu Maragnonii anno MDCCLIII concinnata. Its original is in Biblioteca de Évora in Portugal. From 1754–1756 Szentmartony took part in expeditions to the Amazon and the Rio Negro. Upon the data obtained from his systematical astronomical surveys, in 1755 engineers Schwebel and Sturm made a regional map titled Mappa Geographico dos Rios. It was a first-rate cartographic representation of the riverbed containing data relating to islets, tributaries and settlements. Based on that map Miguel Vieira Perreira made a copy in 1862 which was first published in 1963 in Rio de Janeiro.
He complained vigorously about the inhumane treatment of the native people by the colonizers, so his expedition came under scrutiny and failed. Szentmartony remained as a missionary in the settlement of Ibyrajuba near Pará. In 1760 he was deported with other persecuted Jesuits, put in prison and released in 1777 upon the intervention of the Empress Maria Theresa. He returned to Croatia in 1780. When his religious order was cancelled in 1773, he served as a priest in Belica and Čakovec.
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