What's the Point? On Life, the Universe and Everything with a Jesuit Astronomer
Ignatian wisdom, purpose and the cosmos with Fr. Gabor
Zoom link will be emailed
Event Details
Fr. Gabor, the Vice Director of the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, explores, “What’s the point of it all?” He explains:
When I was searching for a way forward in my life, I ran into a small book by St. Ignatius, and, skimming through it, I ran into a section entitled ‘The First Principle and Foundation.’ It said: ‘God created human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by doing this, to save their souls. God created all other things on the face of the earth to help fulfill this purpose.’ (Spiritual Exercises, #23) I heard it as a call to a life of clarity, peace and freedom. I later found that Ignatius provided not just this brief statement to ponder but also a whole program of exercises for your spirit culminating in a contemplation to learn how God loves his creatures and an invitation to learn how to love them as God does (Contemplation to Attain Love, Sp. Ex. # 231–237). The ‘Principle and Foundation’ was centuries old already at the time of St Ignatius. It comes from a discussion of the purpose of creatures in general, and creatures endowed with intelligence in particular (and yes, that includes humans). What’s the point of it all? And does astronomical study of the Universe provide any hints?
Father Pavel “Paul” Gabor is a Jesuit priest, an astrophysicist, a philosopher and a theologian.
He was born in 1969 in Košice, Slovakia. He studied Particle Physics at Charles University Prague, Czech Republic (1988-1995). His work was primarily instrumental, participating in the development of the ATLAS detector for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland.
He entered the Society of Jesus in 1995, did his two-year novitiate in Kolin, Czech Republic, then two years of Philosophy studies in Cracow, Poland. After this, he taught philosophy for a year in Olomouc, Czech Republic, and studied Theology in Paris, France. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2004. After ordination, he earned a PhD in astrophysics in 2009 in Paris, where he again opted for instrumentation, working with Alain Léger, the author of the proposed Darwin space observatory. Gabor's work under Alain Léger was carried out at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, University of Paris XI, focusing on two optical test beds, SYNAPSE and NULLTIMATE.
Fr. Gabor joined the Vatican Observatory in September 2010 and was assigned to the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson. He became its Vice Director in September 2012. He was the keynote speaker at the 2025 Catholic Media Conference in Phoenix.