A Purposeful Papal Honor: Villanova University’s Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal

On October 13, 2026, the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, will confer the inaugural Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal-a biennial award established by his alma mater, Villanova University, in his name.

For those Villanovans in attendance, the moment will surely evoke the swell of pride and emotion that swept over campus on May 8, 2025, when then-Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected to the Papacy. However, the ceremony will be much more than a celebration of the connection between an educational institution and its most prominent alumnus. It will directly address a major priority and area of spiritual concern for the Pope, the Vatican and the wider Church: the cause of sustainability.

What Is Sustainability?

Sustainability is the cultivation of a harmonious relationship between the natural environment, global communities and the worldwide economy. The most well-known definition comes from the United Nations Brundtland Commission, which described it as meeting "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

In turn, sustainability covers a wide range of principles, programs and practices. Yet, while these efforts may differ in nature and scale, they all carry the same overarching intent: creating a better world mindfully.

"Sustainability is about managing for maximum benefits, and then also promoting a culture of care," says Rev. John Abubakar, OSA, PhD, Chief Sustainability Officer at Villanova and a scholar specializing in human flourishing and nature's health. "Oftentimes, when we think of care, we view it from a human point of view-one person caring for another. With sustainability, we expand the concept wider than that."

Essentially, sustainability asks us to care beyond what we immediately see. It challenges us to think not only of our neighbors and neighborhoods, but to consider our actions' effect on persons further afield, across the span of the globe and through decades yet to come.

The Catholic Church and Sustainability

While sustainability has gained increased attention in recent years, the Papacy has a long and storied history of advocacy on its behalf. Since the Second Vatican Council, successive leaders of the Catholic Church have centered and uplifted the cause, seeing it as integral to defending the intrinsic dignity of humankind and all creation.

Saint Paul VI famously warned of the perils, both planetary and spiritual, of exploiting nature; Saint John Paul II defined our ecological crisis as a profound moral issue; and Pope Benedict XVI emphasized our responsibility to provide future generations with a healthy, livable environment. Perhaps most notably, Pope Francis published Laudato Si', the first social encyclical dedicated to the natural world, which stressed that the cry of the Earth is inseparable from the cry of the poor.

As Father Abubakar explains, by virtue of such teachings, the Church has consistently served as a "moral conscience" for a world that often neglects sustainability-related issues. "It reminds us that there is life beyond the material-that the degree to which I am able to share, the degree to which I am able to be concerned and the degree to which I am able to feel the pain of another person best defines my humanity."