Background
Rev. Sabino Maffeo, S.J. was the assistant to the director of the Vatican Observatory from 1985-2003 and continued working at the observatory as a historian and archivist until 2017, when he retired at the age of 95. He was born in Somma Vesuviana, Naples, Italy in 1922 and joined the Jesuits in 1937 at the age of 15. He earned a B.A. in philosophy and a B.A. in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and was ordained a priest in 1953.
He earned his Masters in physics in 1957 from the University of Rome and Florence; his thesis topic dealt with the propagation of neutrons slowed by graphite. He taught physics at the Istituto Massimiliano Massimo in Rome, and he was president of the same school from 1962 to 1968, at which time he was appointed provincial of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus, a post he held from 1968 to 1973. Following that, he served as technical director of Vatican Radio. (1973-1985)
