Pope Leo XIV marked today’s anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon‑landing with a papal tour of the Vatican Observatory’s domes in Castel Gandolfo.

Video showed the Holy Father peering through the historic Schmidt telescope while New Orleans‑born Jesuit astronomer Fr. David Brown, S.J.—a former physics teacher at Jesuit High School of New Orleans—explained the latest stellar‑evolution research. The encounter cast a bright spotlight on the Jesuit intellectual tradition that spans Banks Street in Mid‑City all the way to the Vatican’s hilltop laboratories.

Pope Leo arrived in Castel Gandolfo shortly after the Sunday Angelus and spent nearly an hour visiting the observatory’s instruments, collections and summer‑school students. Posts from the Holy Father’s official Instagram account capture him examining meteorites and greeting the Jesuit staff.

Brown, who entered the Society of Jesus in 1991 after earning a physics degree at Texas A&M, taught at Jesuit from 1996‑99 before completing a D.Phil. in astrophysics at the University of Oxford.

Now an astronomer on the observatory’s stellar‑evolution team, his research focuses on horizontal‑branch and subdwarf‑B stars. Brown told journalist Christopher Lamb that the Pope’s questions about humanity’s “place among the galaxies” were “as probing as any doctoral examination.”

Brown’s expertise still influences the spiritual life of the Jesuit High School students and faculty today.

During the ongoing restoration of the Chapel of the North American Martyrs, he partnered with Jesuit’s president Fr. John Brown, S.J., and Jesuit’s creative director Brittany Donnes to design a new ceiling that reproduces the constellations above New Orleans at the moment of the Resurrection some 2,000 years ago. The project, Jesuit’s president said, reminds students that “Christ’s victory has begun, and we’re part of that ongoing story.”

For the Pope, today’s observatory stop underscored his stated hope that science classes and theology seminars “speak to one another in the grammar of wonder.” For the Jesuit community, it was a tangible sign that a teacher who once explained Newton’s laws on Banks Street now leads the Church in measuring the heavens. And for students peering up at the newly painted chapel ceiling this fall, the message is clear: the same stars that guided the Magi and dazzled Apollo astronauts still call Blue Jays—and even the Pope—to look higher.