About Father Paul's Astronomy Page

When I have time and the weather is nice, one of the hobbies I enjoy most is astronomy. Ever since my first department store telescope as a child back in the '70's, I've been fascinated by the stars. Now that I'm an adult, I can properly enjoy my hobby. My hope for this webpage, like most adult amateur astronomers, is that a young person might view these images and experience the same sense of wonder that I do.

My name is Father Paul D. Williams, Jr. I am a Catholic priest with the Archdiocese of Atlanta. As of now, I am on a 4-year assignment in El Paso, Texas, to learn Spanish and train our seminarians in Spanish ministry. Formerly, I was pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Griffin, Georgia and its missions of St. Ann's in Barnesville and St. John's in Thomaston. I was born and raised in Atlanta and now my family home is the North Georgia mountains near Blairsville, Georgia.

My background is of interest to some: I graduated from Georgia Tech in 1988 with a degree in Computer Science. For a few years, I worked as a Software Engineering Specialist in the defense industry (specifically Digital Flight Control Software on advanced fighter jets). Somewhere along the line, I became aware of a calling to serve, and thus I entered the seminary, Mount Saint Mary's in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1991. I was ordained a priest in 1995 and haven't been happier.

A thought on the faith of the scientist:

"The scientist's condition as a sentinel in the modern world, as one who is the first to glimpse the enormous complexity together with the marvellous harmony of reality, makes him a privileged witness of the plausibility of religion, a man capable of showing how the admission of transcendence, far from harming the autonomy and the ends of research, rather stimulates it to continually surpass itself in an experience of self-transcendence which reveals the human mystery".
- Pope John Paul II, 7/17/85.

To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements, and such a marvellous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be an abdication of human intelligence which would thus refuse to think, to seek a solution for its problems... A myriad of indications impels man, who tries to understand the universe in which he lives, to direct his gaze towards his Creator.

- Pope John Paul II, 7/10/85.

 

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