Although the Church has taken some not-so-gentle ribbing at times for its centuries-long view of Galileo's discovery as heretical, the reality is that the Vatican has long maintained its own observatory, Specola Vaticana. Headquartered at the Pontifical Villas at Castel Gandolfo, Italy, it is one of the oldest astronomical research institutes in the world.
In an interview with L'Osseravtore Romano last year, Jesuit Father Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the observatory, addressed the Galileo controversy, saying that no one can deny the conflict occurred and no on can say that similar conflicts might not arise in future. That being said, the world needs to "turn the page" and move on.
"I believe that the Specola has this mission, to stand on the frontier between the world of science and the world of faith, to bear witness to how it is possible to believe in God, and at the same time to be good scientists," Father Funes said.
Of course, no matter how grand the observatory and how good the intentions, the Church will probably never live down its condemnation of Galileo or the fact that it took hundreds of years to come around and admit that poor misunderstood Galileo was right after all.
