Pope Leo XIV has appointed Father Richard Anthony D’Souza, S.J., as Director of the Vatican Observatory. 

A statement released by the Vatican Governorate on Thursday noted that “with this appointment, Pope Leo XIV has confirmed the succession process that had been underway before the death of Pope Francis.”

Father D’Souza, who has a doctorate in astronomy and who has been a staff member at the Observatory since 2016, succeeds Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J., whose mandate expires on September 19, 2025.

Commenting on this transition, Brother Consolmagno stated, “I am delighted that His Holiness has chosen Father D’Souza to be the next director of the Vatican Observatory. I know that Father 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, Father D’Souza noted, “During his 10 years of leadership, Brother Consolmagno has distinguished himself for his dedication to dialogue between science and faith, to scientific dissemination, and the promotion of astronomical research at the international level.”

The statement also noted that after finishing his mandate as Director of the Observatory, Brother Consolmagno will continue as a staff astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and as the President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

Father D’Souza 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, having studied philosophy and theology at Jnana Deepa, Pune, India.

His academic formation includes a bachelor’s degree in physics; a master’s degree in physics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, where he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, for his thesis work; a doctorate in astronomy with research done at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Munich, concentrating on the formation and evolution of galaxies; and a post-doctoral program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Father 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. His research focuses 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 Vatican Observatory is 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 Proprio “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 statement continues, “The Jesuit astronomers at the Vatican Observatory continue to be faithful to this mission — studying a wide variety of fields from stars, meteorites, and galaxies, to the large scale of the Universe of cosmology and back to 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.