A move toward religion

Many of America’s most-famous Catholic colleges have long been criticized for moving away from their historic identities. Pope Benedict XVI reminded a gathering of educators at Catholic University of America on April 17 about the importance of the church and the faith to their purpose.

The litany of complaints is familiar: “The Vagina Monologues” at the University of Notre Dame; crucifixes at Georgetown University; pro-choice speakers, such as Michelle Obama, at Villanova University; the furor over St. Louis University basketball coach Rick Majerus, ad infinitum.

However, some other Catholic colleges and academies are self-consciously going in the opposite direction, reasserting their religious identities and making that a part of their appeal. The Washington Times spoke with people at several such institutions about what makes them distinctive.

Thomas Aquinas College

Matthew Maxwell, 21, a senior at Thomas Aquinas, said the college’s strong Catholic identity was instrumental in his choosing it.

“Thomas Aquinas College was not just a school that had courses, and Mass on the side,” Mr. Maxwell said. “Catholicism was intertwined in everything we did here. You study St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, we start off classes with prayer, and the college offers four Masses every day as well as daily confession.”

The Santa Paula, Calif., college follows the tutor method, whereby the instructors lead the students in the reading and discussion of the central works in the Western and Christian traditions, rather than the usual “college textbooks,” Mr. Maxwell said.

The college’s Catholic culture also extends outside the classroom, in the planning of social events and with the expectation that students will address one another as “Mister” or “Miss,” he said.

“Catholic identity was the main thing I was looking for in choosing a college,” he said.

Belmont Abbey College

Asserting a strong Catholic identity can often lead to controversy, as recently discovered by Belmont Abbey, a 132-year-old Benedictine college outside of Charlotte, N.C.

The college came under fire recently when it removed contraception, abortion and voluntary sterilization from the services covered under its employee health care plan. Despite eight faculty members appealing the removal to the state’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the college remains undeterred.

“As a Catholic college, you’re always rubbing up against society in a different way,” said Ken Davison, Belmont Abbey’s vice president for college relations. “For example, when we first started during Reconstruction in 1876, we ran up against social norms and societal norms because we did not discriminate based on your race or your color.”

The college’s first students included Cherokee Indians and recently freed black slaves, who worshipped and studied alongside white students, Mr. Davison said.

Belmont Abbey boasts a strong adult-education program, and its programs in business and biology are among the college’s most popular.

“In the past 30 years, we’ve had nearly 100 percent success in our biology students getting into pharmacy schools and medical schools,” Mr. Davison said.

Nevertheless, Mr. Davison reminds students and potential faculty that while they are welcome to become part of the college’s family, the Benedictine monks who run the college “are there to find God.”

Christendom College

Virginia’s Christendom College is another primarily four-year liberal-arts college that prides itself on its Catholic identity — both inside and outside of the classroom.

The college was founded during the turmoil within Catholic education that marked the late 1970s and early 1980s, said Tom McFadden, Christendom’s director of admissions and marketing.

“For us, Catholic culture and identity is the whole reason for founding the college,” Mr. McFadden said. “It’s everything for us. Christendom stands for something bigger than individual people; it stands for a whole way of life.”

The academic program presents a full immersion in Catholic theology, history, philosophy and culture. Catholic principles are also observed in the college’s rules and social events outside of the classroom.

“Our food, plays, music, dances — we host events that are culturally enriching for our students,” Mr. McFadden said.

For example, during the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, the college hosted a competition among three faculty members to determine who could name the most popes in reverse historical order.

Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy

Nestled in the Ottawa Valley about an hour northwest of Canada’s capital region is Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy.

The academy began as a post-secondary institution to provide a group of Catholic home-schoolers with the opportunity to study the Catholic faith in-depth for a year before moving on to college.

The academy now offers one-, two- and three-year certificate programs in Catholic studies and has negotiated articulation agreements, which match course work and smooth student transfers, with several Catholic colleges in the United States.

“The pursuit of a Catholic identity in higher education is the whole reason for our founding,” said David B. Warner, the academy’s president, who notes that Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body is particularly prominent within the academy’s curriculum.

“At a very deep level, Pope John Paul II’s papacy was the seedbed of our founding,” Mr. Warner said, “and this tradition continues with Pope Benedict XVI.”

Most of the academy’s 85 students are from Canada, however, although the number of international students is growing.

Students pray before each class, pray as an academy and pray in their dorm houses, and are encouraged to attend Mass each day. “Prayer is absolutely central to what we do,” Mr. Warner said.

Franciscan University of Steubenville

One of the Catholic universities with which Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy enjoys an articulation agreement is Franciscan University of Steubenville.

The Ohio university, which boasts more than 2,000 undergraduate students, offers 36 majors and 33 minors. Yet the university’s biggest selling point is its strong Catholic identity, said Kevin Miller, a professor of moral theology at the university.

“The vast majority of our students want to attend a university with a solid commitment to Catholic teaching,” Mr. Miller said.

Professors are committed to teach according to the thinking of the Church, to reconcile faith and reason within the classroom, and to lead students in mission trips and other Catholic endeavors.

“We take seriously that to be a Catholic university involves all that goes along with Catholic identity,” he said. “We take seriously that faith and reason are in harmony with one another, and to be all that we can be as a university, involves embracing our Catholic identity.”

Mr. Miller finds the experience liberating as both a professor and a theologian.

“By remaining within the boundaries of papal teaching, I can be the Catholic theologian I want to be and pursue the theological vision I want to pursue without feeling marginalized.”

His view is shared with many students, who cheered and celebrated on campus when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as pope in 2005.

Catholic Distance University

Catholic Distance University (CDU) is unique among America’s Catholic colleges and universities asserting their Catholic identity in having no physical campus instead offering its courses entirely through distance education.

Pope John Paul II opened “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” his document on Catholic universities, by stating that Catholic universities were born in the heart of the Catholic Church, said CDU Vice President Marianne Evans Mount.

“We are unique in that most of our students are adult learners who lack local opportunities to study the Catholic faith at a university level,” Mrs. Mount said. “Part of our Catholic identity is reaching out to these adult learners and offering them the opportunity to come into the heart of the church.”

CDU has the rare privilege of being able to give Vatican-approved diplomas in catechesis and its curriculum is based mainly on papal encyclicals and other primary documents of the church such as those of the Second Vatican Council.

“We believe the best way to transmit the Catholic identity is to put adult in personal contact with the church’s documents, to enable our students to go to the documents themselves,” she said.