Heart and Soul: The Pope’s astronomer
BBC World Service

Readers of The Tablet are already familiar with the name of Br Guy Consolmagno, papal astronomer and a columnist on this paper. Colm Flynn’s profile of the self-styled “Sputnik Kid” (19 September) began in the exalted setting of the pontiff’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, 25 kilometres south of Rome. Out on the roof terrace, high above the gardens and the papal farm, as the twin steel doors ground open and a mighty telescope leaned out towards the skies, “the cutting edge of the Vatican” took visible shape.

Br Guy (inset), a spry-sounding 68-year-old, cut an engaging figure, so determined to eschew stuffiness that he sounded rather like a veteran US actor bidden to appear on a prime-time chat show. How was he? “Doin’ great … It’s great fun to be here.” The back-story took in childhood in ’50s Detroit, a fascination with the Space Race – hence his nickname – and sci-fi and a leading role in high-school maths classes (“I was a nerd”).