Although I know the church has a lot of money, I can't imagine they dedicate a particularly large budget to the observatory compared to, say, a huge research university or a specialized scientific research project.

Openly musing, I'm just curious how they decide which projects to pursue, and how they contribute to the community? I know nothing about astronomy, but I imagine like many areas of research, they have conferences on various topics, so perhaps the VO scientists participate in conferences relevant to their research. Which again, of course, brings up the question "how do they decide what to research"?