Retired Lt. Col. Andrew Michael Allen, a former astronaut and a Villanova University graduate, told Newsmax on Friday that the school provides a "strong foundation" for students, including himself and Pope Leo XIV.
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in Chicago, graduated from Villanova in 1977, the same year as Allen, who told "Newsline" that he "was absolutely thrilled" to hear his old classmate had been elected pontiff.
"Villanova is a great school, and it did some really good things for me and gave me a good start in life and a good foundation, both from a Christian way as well as a technical engineering degree."
Allen noted that although he didn't know the Pope personally during their time in school together, saying, "I wonder if I bumped into him in the hallway a few times because my freshman year at Villanova, I stayed in the dormitory that the seminarians stayed in. So we were probably within proximity, probably."
He later added that Villanova "has a strong foundation. It's Augustinian," like Pope Leo, and a "basically Catholic university," although "it does open up its doors to everyone."
Allen added that "the Christian values and morals were strong at that school," and this was "probably something that kind of really helped me along it. It gave me a pretty solid foundation of that person that I was going to become so many years later, as well as it has so many other folks."
He continued, "So I just think having something like this and having the recognition and having an American as a pope is just hopefully a tremendous opportunity for a lot of people to get back to some very nice values and high values that will help the world."
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