Pope Leo XIV Is a Gift to US Catholic Colleges and Universities  

Villanova University is having a well-deserved moment with the election of Pope Leo XIV, its most notable graduate. Founded in 1842 by the Order of St. Augustine and dedicated to its motto of “Veritas, Unitas, Caritas”—truth, unity, and love—Villanova had historically been an ardent defender of the faith and zealous protector of the social and moral teachings of the Catholic Church. And although the faithful Villanova University of the 1970s—the years when Pope Leo XIV attended—is very different from the more secularized Villanova of today, Pope Leo XIV appears to be having a positive—and faith-filled—impact on the Villanova campus.

As a student, Pope Leo helped start a pro-life group on campus called Villanovans for Life, which still exists today—more than 50 years later. This concern for the unborn—the most vulnerable among us—has defined his ministry throughout his priesthood and will shape the vision he brings to the papacy. In a 2019 homily, he said, “We cannot build a just society if we discard the weakest—whether the child in the womb or the elderly in their frailty—for they are both gifts from God. In 2023, he said, “The Church must walk with all people, especially the most vulnerable ensuring their dignity is upheld from the womb to the end of life, as this is the heart of Christ’s mission.” And, most recently, he said, “God’s mercy calls us to protect every life, especially those society overlooks—the child yet to be born and the elderly nearing their journey’s end—because each bears Christ’s face.”

It is clear that Pope Leo will be a champion for the unborn, and it is possible that he can help to change the culture of Catholic campuses like Villanova, which seem to have forgotten that the role of Catholic higher education is to teach the truth of the Gospel as it comes to us through the magisterium of the Catholic Church. One of the most important truths is that of the dignity of the human being from conception until natural death. But unfortunately, this truth has been hidden from students on many Catholic college campuses, where they are often encouraged to reject that truth. And although Villanova is not the worst offender in its neglect to zealously proclaim the truth about the need to protect the most vulnerable, there remain several feminist faculty members on the Villanova campus who have been trying to convince students that access to abortion is not only permissible but necessary.   

In February 2023, the campus newspaper, The Villanovan, described campus reactions to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. It published excerpts from interviews with those pro-abortion Villanova faculty and students who decried the decision that has already saved thousands of unborn lives. Rather than supporting the life-saving Dobbs decision on the Villanova campus, the article focused on the “violation of women’s rights” and gave no space to the pro-life voices on campus. Several pro-abortion Villanova students were interviewed, as was pro-abortion Villanova professor of English Alice Dailey who was quoted in the article denouncing the Dobbs decision, saying that she was “absolutely outraged and appalled…devastated and a lot of women were and still are devastated. Women’s bodies belong to women, not anyone else.” 

Dailey added, 

I believe the rights and dignity of women is an area that we have made significantly less progress than we need to…Women are alive and women are people but this legislation and the decision suggests otherwise, and it is deeply troubling that we are in a place where we tolerate that kind of misogyny.

Professor Dailey’s sentiments parallel those often expressed by Villanova Professor Massimo Faggioli, who has suggested that a better way for the United States to proceed in the aftermath of Dobbs is to adopt a version of Italy’s Legge 194, which allows women to receive abortions through the first 90 days of pregnancy. In an article titled “Abortion in Italy: Can Legge 194 Serve as a Model for the United States,” Faggioli praises Legge 194 because beyond ninety days, abortion is permissible if there is danger to the woman’s life or when pathological processes are ascertained including those relating to significant anomalies or malformations of the unborn child which cause a serious danger to the physical or mental health of the woman. Legge 194 also established the role of judges in allowing abortion for underage women if the parents or legal guardians do not agree with the child’s decision to abort. Faggioli’s suggestion would return us to the days of Roe when a pregnancy—even a late-term pregnancy—could be terminated if that pregnancy threatened a woman’s “mental health.”

Critical of the U.S. bishops who have spoken out against pro-abortion politicians, Professor Faggioli praised the Catholic hierarchy in Italy, stating that although they “lamented Legge 194 and the referendum, and endorsed the Movement for Life, it never tried to mount the kind of culture war that the U.S. bishops did.” Faggioli has been especially critical of the U.S. bishops who have “made abortion the number one issue” and believes our bishops “lack the ability to intellectually understand and analyze what is happening in the world and how democracy in the USA is in danger.” Praising the German bishops, whom he claims “show what happens when bishops can read, think and write,” Faggioli decries the fact that the U.S. bishops have made abortion the number one issue.   

Author of Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States, Faggioli’s hagiography praised the pro-abortion former-President Biden’s Catholic commitment to social justice and concluded that “Biden is a son of the people of God…whose faith is a credible Catholicism because it is more lived than proclaimed.” Claiming that the former president is a “sincerely practicing Catholic,” Faggioli tried to convince readers of his book that Biden should be lauded for his “compassionate and humble truth telling.” In 2014, Jill Biden—the outspoken advocate of abortion rights and spouse of the then-vice president—was chosen as Villanova’s Commencement speaker and was given an honorary degree. In 2014, Jill Biden —the outspoken advocate of abortion rights and spouse of the then-vice president—was chosen as Villanova’s Commencement speaker and was given an honorary degree.Tweet This

Beyond abortion, the truth of Catholic teaching on gender and same sex marriage appears to be contested on the Villanova campus. On the thoroughly woke LGBTQ+ Resources page on the Villanova website, there is a long list of “inclusive” restrooms on campus available to “trans and gender-nonconforming people.” Villanova’s “Pride” group describes itself as “a group of students, faculty and staff working together to foster community, awareness and celebration of LGBTQIA+ identities on campus.” During Pride Week on the Villanova campus last month, students were invited to participate in bingo night with drag queen FT. Ophelia, play Pride Trivia, and attend the Met Gay-La.   

Pope Leo XIV can have a positive impact on the culture at Villanova—and all Catholic colleges and universities—if he is willing to continue his quiet but steadfast faithfulness to the Gospel and the social and moral teachings as they come to us through the magisterium. The new pontiff must know that there are many Catholic colleges and universities that, like Villanova, have forgotten their true salvific mission. As my most recent book, A Lamp in the Darkness: How Faithful Catholic Colleges Are Helping to Save the Church, points out, there are fewer than two dozen Catholic colleges and universities in the country—one of which is my own academic home, Franciscan University of Steubenville—with the courage to proclaim the Gospel in its fullness. These bastions of faithfulness are often mocked by those like Faggioli, whose new book, Theology and Catholic Higher Education, has dismissively described them as housing “neo-traditionalist” Catholics who produce a “reactionary Catholicism” that creates a false sense of the Catholic intellectual tradition as an unchanging and unchangeable thing. At Franciscan, our students and our faculty proudly proclaim that there are Catholic teachings that will never change, including respect for the dignity of the human person from conception until natural death and the sacredness of marriage between one man and one woman. We share with our students that the Church has been warning us for decades about a gender ideology that dissolves the connection between gender and sex and denies that the body has any intrinsic meaning. Villanova’s gender-inclusive bathrooms and drag bingo have no place on a faithful Catholic campus. If Pope Leo XIV is willing to remind us of this, Villanova and the rest of the Catholic colleges that have lost their way can recover the Catholic identity that the pontiff experienced when he attended the once faithful school. That would be the best gift Pope Leo can give to the university that nurtured his vocation.