Villanova University awards first-ever Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal to Cardinal Michael Czerny

Pope Leo XIV's alma mater is giving out an award named after the first American pontiff.

Cardinal Michael Czerny has been named the recipient of the first-ever Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal, Villanova University announced Monday.

The university said the medal will recognize individuals "whose work demonstrates exceptional commitment to ecological responsibility, social justice, care for the most vulnerable and responsible stewardship of economic and human resources."

Leo, a Villanova University alumnus, will confer the medal to Czerny later this year in a ceremony on Oct. 13, 2026, at the Vatican.

"The Medal reflects a deeply held belief at Villanova: care for our common home and care for one another are inseparable," said Rev. Peter Donohue, Villanova's president. "Cardinal Czerny's work has shown us that care for creation cannot be separated from care for people. This is precisely the kind of leadership the Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal seeks to recognize."

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1946, Czerny later emigrated to Montreal, Canada, and was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1973. He served communities around the world in Canada and El Salvador and in Kenya, he founded the African Jesuit AIDS Network. Pope Francis named Czerny a cardinal in 2019.

"I think that the fact that a U.S. Catholic university has taken the initiative to develop and to grant a sustainability medal is a very, very important commitment, and much to be appreciated that Villanova University is making this commitment in such a public way," Czerny said Monday.

Then known as Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV graduated from Villanova in 1977 with a degree in mathematics and once tended the grounds at St. Denis Parish in Havertown.