In the hallowed halls of the Vatican Observatory, housed within the historic Castel Gandolfo castle, a Jesuit priest from Goa is rewriting the cosmic history books. Fr Richard D’Souza, a 46-year-old physicist and astronomer, has embraced the role of a galactic archaeologist, delving into the universe's most violent events: galactic cannibalism, where larger galaxies consume smaller ones.
From Goa's Skies to Galactic Breakthroughs
Born in Pune in 1978 and raised between Kuwait and Goa, D’Souza's celestial journey began under the clear night skies of rural India. "I used to go for camping trips... far away from the city lights where you could see the night sky. This was perhaps my first interest in the heavens," he recalls. This early fascination was cemented during his Jesuit novitiate in the remote Desur, Belagavi.
His academic path, guided by the Jesuit tradition of intellectual rigour, was multifaceted. After a physics degree from Mumbai's St Xavier's College, he pursued a master's at Heidelberg, working at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Jesuit formation then took him through philosophy and theology in Pune, before a gravitational pull back to astrophysics led him to a doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich.
The Andromeda Discovery and a Life in Balance
D’Souza's landmark scientific contribution came in 2018. Published in the journal Nature Astronomy, research by him and co-author Eric Bell pinpointed a colossal galactic merger. They determined that the Andromeda galaxy's most significant collision, an event that reshaped our Milky Way's closest neighbour, occurred roughly two billion years ago.
His life embodies a unique harmony between science, faith, and social action. In 2007, between philosophical and theological studies, he helped establish St Paul’s Community College in Belagavi for school dropouts. Today, he balances his roles with clarity. "Our work at the observatory is basically doing scientific research with 80-90% of our time... The remaining 10% of the time, we remind the Church that faith and science need to go together," he explains.
Leading One of the World's Oldest Observatories
Since 2022, Fr Richard D’Souza has served as the superior of the Jesuit community at the Vatican Observatory. He now holds the position of Director of the Vatican Observatory itself, steering one of the world's oldest active astronomical research institutions, founded in 1774.
Straddling the realms of theology and cutting-edge astronomy, he is often quizzed about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. With characteristic humour, he deflects, "I was waiting for this question and my response is, thank God I am not an expert on that." His work continues to focus on decoding the past of galaxies, wearing his proverbial Indiana Jones cap to uncover the universe's formative, violent stories, all while bridging the perceived gap between the spiritual and the scientific.
