Villanova University in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania, is a Roman Catholic institution. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But for some residents of Radnor, Villanova is kind of overdoing this whole Catholic thing.
Recently the university announced it would build a pedestrian bridge over a state road to connect the north side of campus with the south. Which is fine. Then the university unveiled a drawing of the proposed bridge. At each end stone pillars were topped with crosses.
Crosses! Right there in the open! Where the children might see them!
The bridge will be on school property and maintained by the university. Nevertheless, many in the community immediately raised vocal opposition to the crosses, as surely as if Radnor were a town of vampires.
The local League of Women Voters rushed to the ramparts. “While we recognize the importance of Villanova to our community and the notoriety it brings to Radnor,” the group’s president told Susan Snyder of phillynews.com, “are there less ostentatious ways to reflect a Catholic institution?” The LWV president even spoke at a township commission meeting to express opposition to the offending crosses.
One local resident, Sara Pilling, was even more emphatic. “I think they are overstepping their sense of ecumenism to shove these crosses in our faces,” she told Snyder.
The real news here is that Sara Pilling must be 30 feet tall. That’s how high above the roadway the crosses will be—a pretty remote shoving distance for most drivers. We assume she owns a convertible.
Happily, township commissioners voted last week to approve the bridge as proposed. Villanova will not be denied these small accoutrements of its Catholic identity. And the members of the Radnor League of Women Voters—every one of them a strong advocate of diversity, we’ll guess—will just have to avert their eyes.
