A Full Week in Castelli Romani

Campus Life

A full week in Rome has a way of stretching time, not because more hours are added, but because each day seems to carry more weight.

On Saturday, before the city had fully woken, students made their way into St. Peter’s Basilica. The streets were quiet, the air still carrying the cool of night. Inside, they attended Mass at the Clementine Chapel, an altar situated directly above the tomb of St. Peter. It is one thing to learn about the foundations of the Church in a classroom; it is another to stand physically over them.

The following morning, students made their way down to Lake Albano, taking advantage of the kind of weather that makes it difficult to stay indoors. The lakeside was alive without being overwhelming. Small shops tucked into narrow corners, families moving at an unhurried pace, and the steady rhythm of conversation carried on the air. Gelato in hand, students wandered, talked, and took in the scene. It was simple, but not insignificant.

By midweek, that sense of shared life took on a different character. Students gathered near the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, joining a large, varied crowd. Religious groups stood beside families, musicians beside athletes, locals with visitors. When Pope Leo XIV appeared, the tone shifted immediately. What could have remained a distant encounter became something more direct. He moved slowly, deliberately, meeting eyes, shaking hands, and blessing children. There was no spectacle to it, just presence. Students were close enough to see it all clearly.

One evening, students gathered on the rooftop, the sky clear enough to reveal more stars than usual. In the cool night air, they watched the 2002 Spider-Man, bundled up in blankets. Conversations lingered before and after, the kind that does not happen when everyone is moving too quickly. Ancient basilicas and a papal audience by day, superheroes on a rooftop by night. It was relaxed, unstructured, and exactly what was needed to balance the pace of the week.

To round it out, our co-founder Bill Haughey delivered a lecture on structural engineering. He did not speak in abstractions. He spoke about how things actually stand, why they fail, and what it takes to build them well, with a clarity that resonated. The connection between thought and construction, theory and reality, became tangible and students left not just informed, but challenged to take their work more seriously.

Taken together, the week was not defined by any single event, but by the movement between them. From the quiet of early morning liturgy to the energy of a gathered crowd, from technical precision in the classroom to unstructured time by the lake, from centuries-old foundations to the ordinary friendships that make formation real, at CatholicTech, these are not separate parts of student life. They belong together: prayer, study, work, friendship, and the daily discipline of learning how to build well.