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SLU’s President Meets Pope Leo XIV During Gathering of Jesuit University Leaders in Rome

by University Communications

ST. LOUIS — Saint Louis University President Edward Feser, Ph.D., and First Lady Kathy Feser met Pope Leo XIV on June 25 during a special gathering of Jesuit college and university leaders in Rome last week. The working trip was coordinated by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) in partnership with the AJCU Board of Directors. Feser was joined by the presidents of 18 other North American Jesuit colleges and universities.

In an ornate room at the Apostolic Palace in Rome, SLU President Edward Feser, wearing a dark suit, shakes hands with Pope Leo XIV, wearing a white papal floor-length robe and cap, as Kathy Feaser looks on, wearing a white top and blue scarf.

SLU President Edward Feser, Ph.D., and First Lady Kathy Feser meet Pope Leo XIV at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. Photo by Vatican Media. 

“To hear Pope Leo speak about the importance of what we do as institutions that form men and women for others, and to pray with him and alongside my AJCU colleagues, was a deeply moving experience,” Feser said. “I left the meeting grateful and energized, with a deeper awareness of the responsibility and privilege we share as Jesuit university leaders.”

As the AJCU reported last week, Pope Leo encouraged the Jesuit university leaders to reflect on the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs) of the Society of Jesus as “paths that might help to address these challenges at the level of higher education.”

“Your institutions are called not only to teach your students about the injustices faced by those on the margins of society, but also to be powerful channels in promoting systemic change through proposing new models rooted in solidarity and the common good,” Pope Leo said.

You can read Pope Leo’s full remarks to AJCU presidents on the Vatican website.

During their three-day visit to Rome, university leaders also met with Arturo Sosa, S.J., superior general of the Society of Jesus, to discuss opportunities for collaboration between Jesuit institutions across the world, among other topics.

International collaboration was also a topic of discussion during a meeting with Joseph Christie, S.J., secretary for higher education of the Society of Jesus and head of the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU).

You can read more about the trip on the AJCU website and on Vatican News.com.

A group of professionally dressed leaders from Jesuit colleges and universities poses for a photo with Pope Leo XIV, wearing a white papal floor-length robe and cap. They are in an ornate room with a decorated ceiling and large paintings at the Apostolic Palace in Rome.

Pope Leo XIV poses for a photo with leaders from 19 Jesuit colleges and universities at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City on June 25. Photo by Vatican Media. 

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