On the campus of Villanova University, students watched the white smoke rise from the Sistine Chapel during a watch party on Thursday, and were stunned when they heard a familiar name.
“As soon as we heard ‘Prevost,’ everyone started cheering,” said Isabella Quatela, a senior who is graduating next week, in a phone interview.
A former student of the university, Robert Francis Prevost, had just become the new pope.
Church bells rang out for hours on campus, and professors toasted with champagne. Congratulatory messages inundated Villanova’s president as the university celebrated its new most famous alumnus.
Villanova, home to about 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students in the suburbs of Philadelphia, is the nation’s premier Catholic university of the Augustinian order. The order is based on the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo, and characterized by its dedication to community. Its ethos is truth, charity and unity.
Robert Prevost would go on to one day lead the Augustinian order worldwide — and as of Thursday, the entire Catholic Church as Pope Leo XIV.
But in the 1970s, he was just another undergraduate walking the Gothic campus. He studied mathematics and philosophy, graduating with a math degree in 1977.
He has maintained a long connection to the university, returning to campus on occasion and meeting with students in Rome. He received an honorary doctor of humanities from the university in 2014. He is even a Villanova basketball fan.
“He has always been a very loyal Villanova alum,” the university president, the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, said in a phone interview, though he lamented that he may have lost his chance to have the former cardinal as a commencement speaker. “I’m sure he’s going to be really busy now,” he said.
Father Donohue was busy himself on Thursday. He happened to be in Chicago, the new pope’s hometown, for a Villanova alumni event. Once the news was announced, scores of congratulatory texts and emails came in, including a note from the president of a rival Catholic university, Notre Dame.
He said Pope Leo XIV would bring a humble, simple approach to the papacy, one that he had exemplified as a cardinal. Though Cardinal Prevost lived in Vatican City, he would go over to the Augustinian community most days for prayers and meals, Father Donohue said. “Community was very important to him,” he said.
Many people at Villanova on Thursday seemed to have some kind of connection to the new pope. Some of Ms. Quatela’s friends had traveled to Rome and have photos from a dinner with him. “They’re like, ‘I met the pope,’” she said.
Anna Moreland, a humanities professor, once had lunch with him at the University of Chicago. She was hosting a department meeting at a restaurant on Thursday when the news broke. They ordered champagne for the table.
On Thursday evening, Mass on campus was moved from a smaller chapel to St. Thomas of Villanova Church to accommodate the larger-than-expected crowds.
“It’s electrifying,” said Zulena Barcelata, who lives nearby and decided to attend the service when she passed the campus and saw the golden crosses atop the church’s steeples. “The church was full, and people were really singing.”
“How cool is it,” she said, “to pray at the pope’s home parish?”
Alan Blinder and Christopher Maag, from Villanova, Pa., contributed reporting.
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