Pope's astronomer: I would baptise an alien Nick SquiresOctober 25, 2025 at 4:00 AM 0 As the Pope's chief astronomer, Father Richard D'Souza considers Heaven – and the heavens Geoff Pugh The dog collar is impeccably white, the suit perfectly pressed, the black shoes polished to a shine.
- - Pope's astronomer: I would baptise an alien
Nick SquiresOctober 25, 2025 at 4:00 AM
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As the Pope's chief astronomer, Father Richard D'Souza considers Heaven – and the heavens - Geoff Pugh
The dog collar is impeccably white, the suit perfectly pressed, the black shoes polished to a shine. In appearance, Father Richard D'Souza is every inch the sober Catholic priest.
But when he goes to work, he takes on a rather different guise. As well as being a man of the cloth, he is one of the world's leading experts on how galaxies form and evolve.
To try to figure that out, he "put on the hat of Indiana Jones".
He explained: "I become a galactic archaeologist, and I try to infer the past history of a galaxy. We know galaxies do merge, the question is which properties of the galaxies are caused by merging and which are intrinsic to the galaxies themselves."
Adding to his impressive CV, Father D'Souza has just been appointed chief astronomer to Pope Leo XIV, placing him at the intersection of science and faith. He is the new director of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, about an hour's drive south-east of Rome.
Pope Leo XIV gazes through a telescope at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo - Vatican Pool
The town is dominated by the Apostolic Palace, a 17th-century summer retreat for pontiffs, and Roman ruins and landscaped gardens lead from the town to the observatory, which was established in 1891.
The fact that the Holy See has a cluster of four observatories in the hills outside Rome, and a dozen astronomers, might surprise some people. But popes had observatories built at the Vatican as far back as the 16th century, so they could understand the cosmic calendar and establish universally recognised dates for Easter.
Today, the mostly Jesuit members of the multi-national team spend their days studying planets, stars, galaxies, quantum gravity and cosmology. They have a collection of 1,200 meteorites, collected from all over the world and kept in drawers.
But how can the Vatican's astronomers on the one hand apply their formidable intellects and modern instruments to studying the Universe, while at the same time insisting that it was all created by God? Are science and religious belief not mutually exclusive?
"That's a big question," said Father D'Souza. "For me, there is nothing in the sciences which excludes the existence of God. I also think science cannot prove the existence of God. So it is a matter of faith."
The Vatican Observatory's collection includes the first known recorded asteroid - Geoff Pugh
For non-believers, the Universe is the product of the Big Bang, and Father D'Souza, too, believes in the Big Bang – but he also believes that God had a hand in it. "I believe in a benevolent Creator," he said. "He is behind everything."
He pointed out, with a degree of wry satisfaction, that the Big Bang theory was the work of a Belgian Catholic priest, Father Georges Lemaître, in 1927.
Father D'Souza said: "The theory of the Big Bang is a very Catholic concept. Lemaître's ideas were in fact belittled by atheist scientists. They didn't like the idea of a Universe with a beginning. They preferred to see the Universe as a constant."
The popular impression that the Catholic Church and science have been in conflict stems in large part from the heresy trials of Galileo Galilei. He was tried in 1633 by the Inquisition for arguing that the Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than the other way round.
The Vatican Observatory, established in 1891, has its own museum - Geoff Pugh
A few decades earlier, the astronomer Giordano Bruno, who proposed that the universe was infinite, had been burned at the stake in a piazza in Rome for his heresies.
Relations between scientists and the Church have come a long way since then, and the Vatican says Catholic priests have been at the forefront of scientific research for centuries.
There is a black-and-white photograph on the wall of one of the Castel Gandolfo observatories showing Pope Paul VI relaying a message of congratulations to the Apollo 11 astronauts who landed on the Moon in 1969, hailing them as "conquerors of the Moon, pale lamp of our night".
The current pope, Leo XIV, studied mathematics at Villanova University in Pennsylvania and is a strong supporter of the Vatican Observatory.
Father D'Souza himself was born in Goa, India in 1978, and studied theology and philosophy, before being ordained as Jesuit priest in 2011. He studied for a degree in physics, then a master's at Heidelberg University before joining a post-doctoral programme at Michigan University.
Pope Paul VI watched the Apollo 11 Moon Landing from the Vatican Observatory
He joined the Vatican Observatory in 2016, has published papers in numerous scientific journals and is a member of the International Astronomical Union. And as if all that was not enough, he now has an asteroid named after him.
The vast rock, said to be the size of Manhattan, is called D'Souza 27397 and is orbiting around our solar system's asteroid belt, somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
Asked how it felt to have his name used, Father D'Souza said: "It was a nice feeling, it is an honour. Asteroids are the only things you can name after a person. I have discovered galaxies but I can't name them after myself or indeed anybody else. That's the convention."
Rome's urban sprawl and light pollution mean the site at Castel Gandolfo has not been used for serious scientific observations since the Eighties: Vatican astronomers do a lot of their near Tucson, Arizona, using the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope.
Pope Paul VI sends a message of blessing to the Apollo 11 astronauts
The clarity of the night sky is further threatened by the thousands of satellites being launched by Elon Musk and others. The Vatican is pushing for more regulation, arguing that the Outer Space Treaty, drawn up in 1967, has failed to keep up with the commercialisation of space.
Father D'Souza said: "There are a few companies which have the resources to compete. Any country that does not have those resources is left behind. The Holy See is against this paradigm and is pushing very strongly at the UN for stricter regulations. Right now, it is a free for all."
His predecessor, an American Jesuit called Guy Consolmagno, was concerned with another element of space research – namely the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life. Brother Guy wrote a book called Would You Baptise an Extraterrestrial?... and Other Questions from the Astronomers' In-box at the Vatican Observatory.
The title reflected a question from Pope Francis in 2014: "Imagine if a Martian showed up, all big ears and big nose like a child's drawing, and he asked to be baptised. How would you react?"
So would Father D'Souza reach for the holy water and baptise an alien?
"Yes, yes, theology would have to reimagine itself and take into consideration these other beings," he said. "They are all part of God's creation. They would be children of God."
There would be a few practical hurdles to surmount: "We do believe that baptism has to be in presence. The question would be how to reach them or how they would reach us. These are the practical problems to solve before we even talk about baptism."
The question astronomers are posing is not whether there is intelligent life out there, but any life.
"That is a question we can answer in the next 30 years," said Father D'Souza. "Science is pushing for that. Intelligent life is another question. We have historically looked for signals coming from outer space and over the last 30 years we have found none. None."
That said, he pointed out that there are "millions and millions of galaxies out there", adding: "It's mind-blowing. And we don't even see the full Universe, because of the limitations of light and the limitations of our instruments. We have a long way to go."
And with that, the galactic archaeologist has to get on with his day. In his new role as Vatican Observatory director, he has meetings to attend, trips to Arizona to arrange – and divinely inspired new worlds to discovered.
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