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No, Pope Leo XIV wasn’t at a ’70s Villanova University fraternity party in this viral photo

A classmate of the first U.S.-born pope said the photo was taken at a fellow Wildcat's house in Chicago and assured The Inquirer it was not a fraternity party.

Robert F. Prevost, who was just named the Catholic Church's next Pope, Leo XIV, pictured in his Villanova University Class of 1977 yearbook.
Robert F. Prevost, who was just named the Catholic Church's next Pope, Leo XIV, pictured in his Villanova University Class of 1977 yearbook.Read moreCourtesy of Villanova University

Did Pope Leo XIV actually go to a Villanova University fraternity party?

That’s what one user on X purported when he posted an aged photo of the leader of the Catholic Church standing with a group of young men — one wearing a Villanova T-shirt and holding a small dog — in front of a brick bungalow. “The future Pope Leo XIV at a Villanova frat party in 1976,” the caption read.

The tweet had 1.4 million views and more than 15,000 likes as of Sunday.

But internet sleuths were suspicious:

“Not one of them is holding even a beer. That’s one tame frat party,” one of nearly 150 comments read.

“Doesn’t this look more like a step ranch in/near Chicago than anything on the Main Line?” another user smartly deduced.

The photo was actually taken at a fellow Wildcat’s house on the South Side of Chicago, where the pontiff is from, according to a classmate who has a copy. The classmate, who declined to be named for privacy reasons, assured The Inquirer it was not a frat party and dated the photo to the mid-’70s.

Pope Leo graduated from Villanova in 1977. He’s the first U.S.-born pope, which presumably could also mean he’s the first to brush up against Greek life, but Villanova does not have fraternity and sorority housing. The Holy See, the Vatican’s governing body, did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information about the photo.

» READ MORE: Inside Villanova in the 1970s, when the future Pope Leo XIV arrived on campus

Still, people were intrigued by the idea of the Pope at a party:

“It’s important to me that the pope has been to a frat party even if it was a daytime frat party of eight,” one user wrote.

Another said, “Learning your frat bro is now the pope. That’s like something from the epilogue of Animal House.”

» READ MORE: Pope Leo XIV had a message for Villanova’s Class of 2026