“against all odds, people who went to Villanova are somehow about to get more annoying”
This post on X on May 8, by a pop culture podcast producer, has proved to be nothing short of prophetic, and as a Villanovan, I can say we are willing to own it. If you think our fervent enthusiasm for our basketball team may irk other fans, just wait until you see our support for Pope Leo XIV, who happens to be a fellow Wildcat. As a recent graduate of Villanova (just days into Pope Leo XIV’s papacy!), I admit that we are vocal about our pride in the pope. But I promise it comes from a good place.
On the day of Pope Leo XIV’s election, church bells rang out in many places across the world in celebration of our new Holy Father. At Villanova, we played the Alma Mater with pride for hours—and hours. As students, faculty and staff finished exams, we flocked to the steps of the church to take in the moment and process the news. We exchanged hugs and congratulations, marvelling at the cloudless sky and the warm sun that seemed to be celebrating with us. Without knowing quite what it meant yet, we stood in shock and gratitude at what was happening. The pope is a Villanovan.
An overwhelming sense of joy and excitement blanketed the campus, and soon details began to emerge: the fact that Robert Prevost was a math major, photos from his yearbook and then a steady stream of stories from the Augustinian friars who had journeyed with him throughout his life. It was surreal and felt like a sort of revival.
Hearing that the pope is not only American but attended your college brings a bizarre sense of closeness to what is otherwise a distant office. The Vatican is physically far away, and I typically think of the pope as more of a celebrity than a pastor.
Through the years, I’ve found grace in smaller connections with the Holy Father. I was a middle school student when Pope Francis was elected, and I remember filing into the gym of my Catholic grade school in Alexandria, Va., with a tiny Vatican flag while we waited for Pope Francis to appear on a screen. At the time, we were thrilled to have a pope who was simply from our hemisphere. At Gonzaga College High School, I fell in love with Ignatian spirituality and learned how unique it was that this was the spirituality of our first Jesuit pope, now the most prominent moral voice in the world.
Francis’ Jesuit identity helped explain the radical urgency that influenced his concern for the poor and for the environment, as well as his expansive sense of the breadth of God’s love showing up “in all things.” Having a Jesuit vocabulary to understand the pope’s worldview helped Catholics understand who he was and what he stood for.
Seeing an Augustinian pope today inspires a similar sense of discovery. The prominence of Augustinian spirituality at the Vatican not only shines a light on the Augustinian order but highlights the nature of the church as a “big tent,” full of room for the various personalities of the saints to influence relationships with God today. Our faith journey is a communal one, and we are called to learn from one another.
One of my most formative moments in the classroom at Villanova was in my first theology class during my freshman year, in which we discussed one of Augustine’s most famous quotes. Kevin DePrinzio, O.S.A., made a point to call our attention to the common misquoting of Augustine. We often see and hear “Our hearts are restless until we rest in you.” In reality, Augustine wrote, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.” The singular heart completely changes the meaning of the sentence. Suddenly, it is not just about the individual finding the way to God, but about one heart journeying to rest in the Father’s peace. This realization helps explain the Augustinian insistence on hospitality and community. It also inspires hope in our Augustinian pope, tasked with the awesome role of shepherding the global church.
At Villanova, students experience the hospitality of the Augustinians woven throughout their lives through a deep sense of community. Our shared values of Veritas, Unitas and Caritas (Faith, Unity and Love) provide a common language to frame our journey together. This is why Villanovans are some of the proudest alumni in the country, and why we take deep pride in Villanovans “igniting change” all over the world. For us, the news of Pope Leo’s election is not just a spiritual event but a cultural one. Beyond the memes flooding Instagram and the large print of Pope Leo already posted in our college bar, the news has sparked a new sense of closeness to the Vatican for all of us. Catholic or not, seeing a leader who shares your values on the global stage brings a revived sense of curiosity and hope for what might come next.
At the same time, there is something unsettling about such proximity. It feels a little weird to hear about the pope emailing with the presider at your Mass or the priest who taught you theology. It is not that the church feels smaller, but instead that we feel connected to it in a new way. With this tie to the Holy Father, the global church feels closer and more real to those of us on the Villanova campus.
Here is a man who experienced the love we did at Villanova and, in his first address to the church, urged the world “to build bridges through dialogue and encounter, joining together as one people, always at peace…” in pursuit of “a church ever open to welcoming, like this square with its open arms.”
To us Wildcats, those words are spoken like a true Villanovan, overflowing with Augustinian hospitality. Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, wrote that hospitality “is the first step toward dismantling the barriers of the world…. It is the way we turn a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.” With the sheer number and size of the barriers in our world today, is there anything more we could want from the Holy Father?
So yes, Villanovans did just get way more annoying. But we are bursting with hope and with pride—what else are we supposed to do?
