SLU Students Visit Rome for 2025 Jubilee, Audience with Pope Leo XIV

SLU Students Visit Rome for 2025 Jubilee, Audience with Pope Leo XIV

09/09/2025

ST. LOUIS - Eight Saint Louis University students, along with a Jesuit in Formation and two campus ministers, went to Rome before the fall semester began to participate in the Jubilee of Young People. The trip was sponsored by SLU's Department of Campus Ministry.

Throughout 2025, the Catholic Church is celebrating an "event of great spiritual, ecclesial, and social significance in the life of the Church."

Hosted by Pope Leo XIV, this event is one of several international gatherings called by Pope Francis during the Jubilee Year.

The Jubilee Year is celebrated every 25 years and is a profound expression of pilgrimage, renewal, and harmony. Pilgrims pass through the four Holy Doors of Rome and venerate the relics of the apostles in the great basilicas. The 2025 Holy Year theme, Pilgrims of Hope, invites participants to recover a spirit of universality and to raise awareness of supporting vulnerable communities. The Holy Year, under the theme of "Pilgrims of Hope," marks the 2,025-year anniversary of the Incarnation of the Lord.

The trip came together quickly toward the end of the spring semester, said SLU Campus Minister Michael Schreiner. The opportunity was presented to students. Those interested were asked to answer a few essay questions and meet with Campus Ministry. With summer fast approaching, the group had a chance to meet once before the semester ended. They didn't come back together until they met at the airport in late July.

"We had a really good group apply - everyone wanted to go for the right reasons and the group got on really well," Schreiner said.

While in Rome, the group had the opportunity to tour the Vatican, meet with students from other Jesuit colleges and universities and participate in a general audience with Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., superior general of the Society of Jesus.

The highlight of the week was an evening vigil and Mass with Pope Leo in the Tor Vergata field on the outskirts of Rome.

"To see a million people there, camping out in a field to go to Mass with the Pope, really hit me," Luke Salmo, a student in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business, said. "When you think that Busch Stadium seats around 45,000 people and then to see what a crowd so many times bigger than that looks like, I couldn't comprehend it until I saw it."

Salmo added that while the crowds made logistics difficult, there were still small moments of interaction and joy.

"I ran into a friend of mine from the University of Dayton at Mass," he said. "We had talked about meeting up and then we ended up just walking right by each other amid all those people."

Pope Leo spoke to the youth in attendance about friendship and feeling connected in an isolating world of social media.

"I couldn't get over hearing the Pope speak in perfect English, just as this guy from Chicago," Salmo said. "He knew his audience."

Christopher Ross, S.J., also noted the power of the Masses, including an opening Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by students from around the world.

"We are bearers of hope for a world in need. It was a profound experience on the universality of the Church to see flags from all over and to hear so many different languages being spoken," he said. "When everyone said Amen together, it felt like it would echo around the world."

The SLU group visited several churches and Holy sites during their week in Rome, including the four Holy Doors at the basilicas of St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Peter. The Holy Doors are only opened during a Jubilee year. Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Eve of 2024 to usher in the Jubilee year. The last door will close on the Feast of the Epiphany in 2025, marking the end of the holy year.

Sophomore Elsie King said she appreciated the opportunity to be a part of a pilgrimage alongside others her age.

"It was so powerful," she said. "I came to SLU because of opportunities like this. I wanted to be at a Catholic school and a place where I could be a part of a community of faith. I found those opportunities here."