Can you please tell me when and how you came to know Father Stanley Jaki?
The short answer is: I met him in 1999, when he came to Italy for giving some talks in Milan, Lugano and Florence.
The long answer is the detail of a series of “coincidences” that led to my meeting him in 1999. It all started in 1987. Father Jaki got the Templeton Prize that year. For this reason, the Italian Publisher Jaca Book decided to translate into Italian one of his books: The Road of Science and the Ways to God. It was published in 1988, and I read it with much interest. In 1988 Father Jaki was also invited to speak at the Rimini Meeting for the Friendship Among Peoples, an invitation that he accepted. I spent a few days at the Rimini Meeting that year, but did not even realize that Father Jaki had been invited. After reading (in Italian) The Road of Science, I realized that it pointed to another of Father Jaki’s works, Science and Creation. I tried to get the book (it had been printed in the UK), but did not succeed at all. An apparently unrelated fact happened in 1993. The Rimini Meeting welcomes volunteers to help in the organization of the event. Up to 1992 the volunteers were mainly university students, but in 1993 adults were invited to participate as well. At the tender age of 43, I decided to become a volunteer (and I did remain a volunteer for more than 20 years afterwards). I was assigned the task to be one of the stewards that take care of the guests of the Meeting, which I happily did. Three years later, in 1996, the first bookstores opened on the Internet. The very first book I ordered was Science and Creation, and I got it at the beginning of August 1996. I brought my copy of the book with me to the Rimini Meeting. Another volunteer (Paola Faggioli) noticed that I was reading a book of Father Jaki’s and told me: “I will introduce you to the volunteer that took care of Father Jaki (back in 1988). I am aware that she is still in touch with him”. So, I met Gabriella Novati (a teacher of English), and we remained in touch as well, since it turned out that she lived not far from my place. Three years later (1999) Father Jaki was invited to give a few talks in Italy. He arrived on Saturday (November 13, 1999), but was due to speak on the following Monday, so someone had to take care of him during the weekend. The Cultural Circle of Milan, that had invited him, recalled that Gabriella Novati was in touch with Father Jaki, and so she was charged with accompanying him for the weekend. Gabriella in turn asked me: “Would you like to be my driver?”, and I, of course accepted. So, I welcomed Father Jaki at the Malpensa Airport, in the morning of Saturday, November 13, 1999. That day we went to the Lago Maggiore, and the following day we visited (between other things) Leonardo’s “Last Supper” in Milan. Father Jaki gave us a booklet, which I had read that same evening. The following day I reported to Father Jaki that I had found a typo in the booklet. Father Jaki had to acknowledge that indeed there was a typo. That was “the beginning of the end”. I remained in touch with Father Jaki afterwards, and when he came back to Italy in February 2000, he landed in Malpensa (the Milan Airport, even if he had to talk in Rome). He left me a printout of some two hundred pages to proofread. It was the first version of A Mind’s Matter, his autobiography. So, from the year 2000 up to his death, I proofread for Father Jaki. He also asked me to translate some of his books. The statement with which he “hired” me was apparently offensive: “Father Jaki is almost always right, but when he is wrong, he is very wrong. Antonio is almost always wrong, but when he is right, he is very right.” It translates: “You could not write a line of what I write, but you can proofread what I write.”
How did he impact your life in a particular way?
Well, I soon discovered that I was in a team of three people: Father Jaki wrote (in New Jersey), I proofread (in Italy), and Dennis Musk printed (in Kentucky). I proofread almost everything he wrote from 2000 onward, and also some of his previous books he reprinted. My “pay” was a signed copy of each printed book. Father Jaki was my guest several times, and I was his guest (well, I was staying in a nearby Best Western Hotel) in 2004, 2007 and 2008, for a total of six weeks. In 2007 Father Jaki and I visited the printing shop managed by Dennis Musk in New Hope, Kentucky. On that occasion the future state of Real View Books was decided. Real View Books is Father Jaki’s no-profit publishing house, to which he left the rights of all his works. After Father Jaki’s death (that happened in Madrid on April 7, 2009, I was one of the four of his friends that were present), with Dennis (and Father Jaki’s Estate) we had to decide what to do with his papers. The books of his library were sent to his university, Seton Hall University. I went through his own books and papers in New Hope, “built” a practically complete set of all his works, and took a backup of all his PCs. I continued to maintain Father Jaki’s sites. With Dennis Musk we decided to publish all what Father Jaki had left “ready for print”, and printed or reprinted a few further books. Most of Father Jaki’s papers (including printouts of a lot of his correspondence) have been then sent to Seton Hall, where there is an ongoing project to deal with them. I also translated a few further books of Father Jaki into Italian. The last one came out in 2024, and is the Italian version of his autobiography.
What would you highlight from Jaki’s work that you consider to be very relevant in today’s world?
First of all his pointing out that there is no conflict between science and the Catholic religion. In particular, it was the Church that created the condition for the birth of science.
Secondly, his pointing out the limitations of science. Science is limited to the measurable properties of everything. But most of our life has to do with things that cannot be measured. Science is unable to state if you can trust a person or not. Today the idea that “science will solve all our problems” is endemic, and is completely false. In a way, science is taking the place of God today, and is what is called an idol in the Bible.
His works as a historian of science and of astronomy remain valid.
Also, he produced a lot of good Catholic theology.
What do you think is the reason why Jaki is being rediscovered today?
Because what he says in his very well documented essays may help Catholics in the fight against secularism.
You have known Jaki personally as a friend. What was his relationship with his Hungarian heritage, what was his feeling toward Hungary, and how was his Benedictine monasticism evident in his work?
Father Jaki, of course, liked Hungary, but he could go back to Hungary only after becoming an American citizen. He founded the publishing house Való Világ in Hungary, which published a few of his books. His brother, Father Zeno, learned English to help in translating Father Jaki’s works into Hungarian. I know that Father Jaki had planned a trip to Hungary for August 2009, but he died before being able to do it. Quite often, when he traveled to Europe, he included a trip to Hungary as well, and he kept a good number of conferences in Hungary. He also had friends there, most notably Gergely and Maria Boganyi. They welcomed me in Hungary after the death of Father Jaki, and I helped them and the family prepare for the funeral of Father Jaki. The then Archabbot was so kind as to allow three friends, Becky Mayhew, Gergely Boganyi and me, to say a few words at the end of the funeral. I said (also speaking for my friends): “It has been my privilege to be close to Father Stanley Jaki during the last ten years (he had been a guest of my family several times) and I have been close to him during the last ten minutes of his life. I witnessed his deep faith, his immense culture, and I have been honored by his friendship. I feel that his contributions to the subject of the relation between science and religion has been exemplary. Father Jaki loved to quote the statement of Saint Paul about the ‘reasonable worship’ we should offer to the Lord. His life has been an example of this ‘reasonable worship.’ Together with other friends, we will try to keep alive the memory of his life and of his works.”
Antonio Colombo was born in Varese, Italy, in 1949, and still lives there. He got an MS in Electronic Engineering at Milan Polytechnic in 1974. He worked as an IT specialist for all his professional life, first for Agusta Helicopters and then for the Amdahl computer company, dealing with operating systems (MVS and Unix), system and application programming, providing customer support to various companies in Italy and abroad. He retired in 2007.
He met Father Jaki in 1999, and collaborated with him from 2000 to 2009, proofreading his works in English, and translating into Italian some of them, including Questions on Science and Religion, Bible and Science, The Ethical Foundations of Bioethics, and A Mind’s Matter: An Intellectual Biography. He collaborates with a couple of Free Software projects (Vim and Gawk). Together with Marco Curreli he translated into Italian the main Gawk Reference book, Effective awk Programming. He has been married since 1976, is the father of three children, and has six grandchildren. Since his High School times he belongs to the Catholic Group Communion and Liberation.