In 1957, some of the world’s most eminent astronomers met at the Vatican to discuss the topic of an evolving universe. All were of northern European descent. None were women. None were people of colour. Georges Lemaître – whose expanding universe theory had been mocked by fellow attendee Fred Hoyle as a “Big Bang” – had to struggle to get taken seriously; as a Catholic priest his ideas about cosmology seemed suspicious.

Although the Vatican Observatory was officially a co-sponsor of the meeting, none of its astronomers participated. The observatory had been established by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, mostly as a gimmick to make the Church look modern, and its astronomers worked on projects chosen by the director, with little scope for their own research, much less to show the public what they were doing … except for an occasional article in the Catholic press by the director.