(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 07.31.2025).- The Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, announced the appointment of Fr. Richard Anthony D’Souza, S.J., as the new Director of the Vatican Observatory. He succeeds Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J, whose mandate of 10 years will expire on September 19, 2025. With this appointment, Pope Leo XIV has confirmed the succession process that had been underway before the death of Pope Francis.
Commenting on this transition, Br. Consolmagno stated, “I am delighted that His Holiness has chosen Fr. D’Souza to be the next director of the Vatican Observatory. I know that Fr. D’Souza has the vision and wisdom to carry the Observatory forward during this time of rapid change in astronomical research, especially given his experience with space telescopes and advanced computational techniques.”
In turn, Fr. D’Souza noted, “During his ten years of leadership, Br. Consolmagno has distinguished himself for his dedication to dialogue between science and faith, to scientific dissemination, and to the promotion of astronomical research at the international level.” After finishing his mandate as Director of the Observatory, Br. Consolmagno will continue as a staff astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and as the President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, USA.
Fr. Richard D’Souza SJ was born in 1978 in India and hails from the region of Goa, India. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1996 and was ordained a priest in 2011 after studying philosophy and theology at Jnana Deepa, Pune, India. His academic formation includes:
1) a Bachelor’s degree in Physics at St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai.,
2) A Master in Physics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany where he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg for his thesis work,
3) A doctorate in astronomy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, with research done at the
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching, Munich, concentrating on the formation and evolution of galaxies,
4) A post-doctoral programme at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. Fr. D’Souza has been a staff member of the Vatican Observatory since 2016 and has held the role of the Superior of the Jesuit community of the Vatican Observatory since 2022.
Fr. D’Souza’s research focusses on the phenomenon of galaxy merging and its effects on the present day properties of galaxies like the Milky Way. He has published in numerous international scientific journals and is a member of several international collaborations. He is a member of the International Astronomical Union and has recently had an asteroid named after him.
The appointment of P. D’Souza represents an important moment of continuity and renewal for the Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical observatories in the world. In founding the present Vatican Observatory in 1891, Pope Leo XIII spelled out the mission of the Observatory in his Motu Propio “Ut Mysticam” writing “…that everyone might see clearly that the Church and her Pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it, and promote it with the fullest possible dedication.” Today, the Jesuit astronomers at the Vatican Observatory continue to be faithful to this mission – studying a wide variety of fields from stars, meteorites, galaxies, to the large scale of the Universe of cosmology and back its beginnings of the Big Bang – seeking to understand the complexity of the Universe and life beyond the solar system and offering a crossroads of dialogue between science, theology and the rich tradition of the Church.
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