Campus Keepers of the Faith

Signs of a religious revival gaining momentum in academia

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A general view of St. Thomas of Villanova Church at Villanova University, in Villanova, Pa., May 8, 2025.

Hannah Beier/Reuters

What might moral renaissance in America look like? That’s a question that seems to be going unasked these days. Admittedly, there’s a reason: signs of cultural decline continue to abound, from cratering birth rates to children and adolescents awash in pornography to the sewage of violence and antisemitism on the internet. Yet the tantalizing question remains: Might familiarity bias toward signs of what’s wrong out there obscure just a little of what’s right?

Begin that thought experiment by considering some of what I saw during a visit to Cornell University last spring. In April 2025, I returned to my alma mater at the invitation of Chesterton House, the Evangelical residential study center, and another relative newcomer to campus, the COLLIS Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture.

Mary Eberstadt

About the Author

Mary Eberstadt

Mary Eberstadt holds the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., and is a senior research fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute.

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