From: sbrock@teal.csn.org (Steve Brock)
Subject: forward from Kris, AZKLB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU, ON THE mT Graham Controversy
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 01:20:34 GMT

     I have been in communication with Fr. George Coyne, S.J. who
is the director of the Vatican Observatory, about the contradictory
nature of the Holy See's involvement in the project and the
disregard of Apache sacred space against Pope John Paul II's
statements to Native Americans at the Tekawitha Conference during
his visit to Arizona in '87.  According to that statement, Native
ought to preserve their traditions.
     Little publicized at that time, His Holiness also met with
representatives of the Society of Friends of the Vatican
Observatory during that same visit.  That group was established to
raise funds for the Vatican participation in the MGIO.  This was
necessary because the Vatican is so strapped that it couldn't
afford to pay its own way in the project.
     It seems, from what I have been able to gather from others
more closely involved in the issue, that the folks in charge of the
environmental impact study failed to examine certain documents,
including the field notes of an anthropologist who had done
extensive work with the Apaches and the impact study failed to
examine certain documents, including the field notes of an
anthropologist who had done extensive work with the Apaches and
a large number of colonial era Spanish writings.  
     This has lead the directors of the MGIO to conclude that there
is no archaeological and no documentary evidence that the mountain
is sacred.  Father Charles Polzer, S.J., curator of ethnohistory at
Arizona State Museum, even went as far as saying that the Apaches
have no perception of mountains as sacred.  This is a rather
strange perception of the Apaches, as you may know, have the
Mountain Spirit Dancers who perform at the girl's puberty
ceremonies! He also said that the Apaches made only the most
ephemeral use of the mountains and that their notion of sacredness
attached to the mountain is about as specific as the sky.
     Last week, news appeared in the media saying that Father
Polzer had called the movement opposing the telescope project a
"Jewish conspiracy" and that it was led by those who are bent upon
destroying the Catholic Church.  This statement was made earlier in
the year and recorded by a Native American student.  Polzer has
since tried to retract his statement but has angered a lot of
folks.
     Father Coyne sent me a packet of information on the Vatican's
participation in the project.  In this packet, he included a
personal reflection on the significance of sacred space.  In effect
he said that property rights are more important than Native
American assertions of sacred space and that because Mount Graham
is on National Forest Service land, it is public land and the
Apache's claim has no validity.  He said that such assertions
of sacredness and environmental concerns should be supressed with
all vigor.
     In response to my questions about why the Vatican has a
telescope in the first place, Father Coyne was kind enough to send
a book celebrating the 100th. annaversary of the Vatican
Observatory.  It seems from this book that the Church's purpose in
engaging in astronomy is to demonstrate that she is not opposed to
science and actively encourages it.  
     The reason that the Vatican needs the telescope in Arizona is
that the present telescope in Castelgondolfo, Italy, is no longer
useful because of light pollution.  No other site in Italy is free
from this problem.  Father Coyne has been associated with the
Vatican Observatory for 25 or so years and has also been on faculty
at University of Arizona for much of this time.  Cooperating with
the MGIO project was a way that the Vatican could secure a new
telescope site.
     In this same book is a copy of a letter from Pope John Paul II
to Fr. Coyne expressing his hope that the study of astronomy may
contribute to improving the Church's understanding of creation, of
cosmology and of Christian escatology (that is, the study of the
end times).
     This raised the question, Is this potential good worth
desecrating sacred space?
     Native peoples wishing to express their views on the MGIO and
the Catholic Church's participation in the project would do well to
write to both Father   Polzer and Father Coyne.

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