Parolin and Mattarella Hail Villa Nazareth at 80
At the Quirinale, Parolin and Italy’s president praised the free college for gifted, low-income students as a model of solidarity amid uncertainty.
On October 31, 2026, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State and president of the Fondazione Sacra Famiglia di Nazareth and of the Associazione Comunità Domenico Tardini, led a delegation received at the Quirinale by Italian President Sergio Mattarella to mark the 80th anniversary of Villa Nazareth.
The university residence houses meritorious, low-income students free of charge. In the Salone dei Corazzieri, two students offered personal testimonies before Cardinal Parolin addressed the gathering. Mattarella called the institution a “brilliant and happy” model for leading young people “to take on responsibility and build the future on the basis of positive values.”
Roots in postwar reconstruction
Villa Nazareth was founded in 1946, as Italy rose from the war, on the conviction of Monsignor Domenico Tardini that the country’s reconstruction “could not be separated from investing in the younger generations, with particular attention to those who, gifted with ability and intelligence, found themselves in conditions of economic and family hardship.”
Cardinal Parolin said that over eight decades the institution has aimed “to form not only competent professionals but conscious citizens, capable of taking part in democratic life, assuming public and private responsibilities, and recognizing solidarity as an essential dimension of civil coexistence.” He recalled the work of Cardinal Achille Silvestrini in keeping that spirit “alive” “in light of the transformations of society and the new needs of the younger generations.”
Education, peace, and difficult times
Parolin said Villa Nazareth intends to remain “a place of education and peace,” as Pope Leo XIV affirmed at an audience on May 30, offering integral formation that joins academic quality with cultural, spiritual, and civic growth, and accompanying people beyond their university years. Speaking of “not easy times,” he said that when faced with challenges, some “let themselves be taken over by fear and hesitate or withdraw,” whereas Villa Nazareth “prefers the other possibility,” seeing challenges as stimuli to find new paths “with confidence in the light of a lasting ideal.”
Mattarella likewise spoke of “particularly complex” times in which uncertainty is “a widespread trait.” He said the future “is not predetermined, it depends on us” and must be shaped especially by young people. He praised Italy’s high sensitivity to solidarity and said turning values into concrete behavior is Villa Nazareth’s task—one that the country and the whole world “have extreme need of.”
The guests presented Mattarella with an edition of the encyclical Rerum novarum carrying a preface by Monsignor Tardini, together with a short publication on the college’s formation project.