“In this weird twist of fate, out of something that was so evil and destructive, I got this glimpse into the really compassionate depths of humans,” Downes said. “It has supercharged me at times when I would otherwise have been really quite down and out. So I would love to find a way to bottle that all up and be able to give it to other people in their times of need as well.”

“I really think for myself, it’s so important to do something that I love,” Hopkins said. “But it’s also so hard because now, money is such a big thing and jobs you actually enjoy aren’t going to pay as well, typically.” 

“It was very difficult to get the administration to commit to it,” Claudio said. “We had a few people, you know, on the lower end of the administration really trying to help us out a lot. The problem was getting the higher-ups to commit to it.”

“I'm also really proud that the center is really looking to the future of the church, being young people with a particular focus,” Kiefer said. “Our commitment to having big conversations about roles and relationships in the church and the Catholic intellectual tradition … and constantly creating new opportunities to engage more people in important conversations about the importance of God.”

Across the country and at BC, both abortion-rights and anti-abortion advocates are processing the Dobbs decision, which overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, establishing that the U.S. Constitution does not recognize a federal right to an abortion. Although not physically together on campus, students, alumni, and professors are grappling with what this decision means for the future of abortion in the United States.