Making Science Great Again

Watch Full Movie (16 min)

MAKING SCIENCE GREAT AGAIN –  Unusual Alliances in Vienna

From Aquinas to Galileo – and back to the Vatican today. That is the backdrop of my short documentary from Vienna, capturing how history turns, how unlikely alliances form, and how we might yet learn to stand with both evidence and humanity.

Four centuries ago, the Vatican silenced Galileo. But Galileo himself was born from a tradition the Church had helped build. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas transformed Catholicism by weaving Aristotle's philosophy—preserved in Baghdad and translated into Latin in Toledo—into Christian theology. His Summa Theologica argued that faith and reason were not enemies but companions. That intellectual revolution prepared the ground for modern science.

History shows us how fragile that balance can be. Sometimes institutions elevate knowledge; sometimes they suppress it. Which is why what happened at the Vatican Resilience Summit matters: the Church is once again choosing dialogue with science.

Thanks to Ingmar Rentzhog and We Don't Have Time for bringing me along to the Apostolic Palace, where the Pontifical Academies convened an extraordinary gathering. Among the voices: Indy Johar, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Fredrik Galtung, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Helen Alford, and 22 other game-changers—scientists, mayors, youth leaders, and innovators—exploring how to build resilience for our common home.

This film captures their urgency, their courage, and their call: to connect science with wisdom, to move beyond silos, and to form unlikely alliances strong enough to face the climate crisis. Below the trailer is the Pay it Forward campaign film with the Make Science Great Again cap in focus. 

Filmed for We Don't Have Time by Carl Eneroth, Stories That Unite Us / SSI Lab