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Notre Dame, IN — A digital planetarium show co-created by Leonard DeLorenzo, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Academic Director of Notre Dame Vision at the McGrath Institute for Church Life, and Philip Sakimoto, formerly the Program Manager and Acting Director of Space Science Education and Public Outreach for NASA and currently the Director of the Program for Academic Excellence at Notre Dame, is scheduled to show at the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado on February 28th, 2020, in conjunction with Holy Family High School.
This event will mark the first time that “All Creation Gives Praise,” first shown in 2007, is displayed in full outside of Notre Dame’s digital visualization theater. An abridged version, “Let There Be Light,” was shown as part of the Vatican’s exhibit at the 2017 World’s Fair in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The show is an hour in length and takes viewers on a tour of the visible universe, beginning in the Milky Way and traveling as far as 13.8 billion light years away. Sakimoto describes what a viewer sees as they move through space and time, and DeLorenzo reflects on that through the lens of scripture and tradition.
“If we’re to hold to the importance of our place of human life, what we’re seeing in the show is what we’ve been told over and over again—we are not the center of the universe,” De Lorenzo says. “That willingness to wonder at what you see and to be displaced at the point of theological reflection is what holds it all together.”
The voices of faith and science in “All Creation Gives Praise” show the complementarity of the two disciplines and demonstrate that each has a place in our contemplation of the universe. Through their collaboration on the project, DeLorenzo and Sakimoto have gained a deeper appreciation and gratitude for the other’s disciplinary expertise, which DeLorenzo sees as a reflection of what mature Catholic life looks like.
“The show promotes an understanding of a deeply Catholic, humanistic education that we develop as whole persons—there isn’t just this one place where faith comes from and one place where reason comes from. They come from all of us and appeal to who we are.”
The showing in the Fiske Planetarium begins at 7 P.M. and is open to the public. Sakimoto will be present at the event to introduce the show and answer audience questions. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the event page.
Contact: Amy North, Program Director of Communications, 574-631-2894, anorth1@nd.edu