<p>While religious classes may be required just think of them as GE classes. At most schools classes like English, Math, History, and Science are required.</p>
<p>Does this mean every student in those classes plan on becoming writers, mathematicians, historians, and scientists? No.</p>
<p>Likewise even if you are not Christian, taking courses pertaining to Christianity can only broaden your knowledge.</p>
<p>Like it or not, Christianity a major force in American politics and a knowledge about it is helpful to any citizen.</p>
<p>I do not know of any Jesuit school that requires a student to attend services and I know many students at several Jesuit schools. As far as the authority thing brought up by another poster I have no idea what exactly is meant by that.</p>
<p>The Jesuits are probably some of the nicest and accepting people that you could meet. They are far more open, and accepting to other religions than most other groups, and they do not force religion down anyones throat. The theology courses have not been a problem for any of the non Catholic students that I know who are attending.</p>
<p>Enjoy this wonderful opportunity that the school has afforded you. I am sure you will be very happy regarding the religion aspect of it.</p>
<p>Anyone familiar with Catholic colleges run by the Vincentian order? (St. Vincent de Paul.) I was just accepted at one, but I’m not as familiar with them as I am the Jesuit order.</p>
<p>I think you’d find a school like Loyola to be fine. Most, in fact all Loyolas I think, have very nice campuses and they accept students from all different religious backgrounds.</p>
<p>As others have pointed out, most Catholic colleges and universities are not only fine with non Catholics and non Christians going there, they actually (at least IMO) seem to enjoy having a diverse student body. Schools like Fordham, Georgetown, Notre Dame and so forth are known as top ranked academic schools, and they are also known for being welcoming to diverse students as well (probably why they are highly ranked; when you have a wide swath of potential students to choose from, you tend to get better selection).</p>
<p>And that isn’t such a new thing, in my father’s day (he would be in his late 80’s if he were alive) there used to be a lot of jokes about the significant number of Jewish kids going to Fordham (my dad grew up in the Bronx), some of which were that the kids names were really O’Stein, O’Levy and so forth:)</p>
<p>There are traditionalist Catholic schools out there, there are lists on conservative Catholic sites for ‘real’ Catholic schools, but they are the kind of schools where unless you are looking for that kind of school, you probably wouldn’t come across them.</p>
<p>I have cousins who went to Catholic colleges and several friends, all of whom at best could be called agnostic (and at least 2 buddhists, a hindu and a sufi moslem among the group), and basically they said it was no big deal, they had to take a couple of religion courses, but they were more general religion courses, including some comparitive religion courses and history of the bible and so forth. </p>
<p>Most of the other Christian colleges tend to be evangelical colleges and the like (most of the schools that were once associated with mainstream churches like the Presbytyrian, Methodist and Episcopal churches became non denominational a long time ago). I can’t speak for them that personally, but from what I am led to believe, they may have a problem with a non christian attending, or may if they do attend want them to attend bible study and chapel…</p>
<p>Just an interesting sidenote – for many years, Fordham ran a school of pharmacy with an enrollment that was predominantly Jewish – the Dean was also Jewish:</p>
<p>If you got into LMU-LA I don’t see a problem with it at all. Pretty cool kids, Ive always just seen catholic schools as a place where students have more in common then just the school they are attending, easier to bond, nothing more. I assume you dont have problems with catholics and we dont have problems with people outside of our religious views. Plus, LMU is a sweet campus, my cousin played softball there.</p>
<p>I go to TCU (Texas Christian) and there are like…no christians here. So yeah, you’re fine. Other schools like ACU and Baylor are hardcore christian though.</p>
<p>If you look on their website you will see pictures of priests, and there college even looks like a church. I would recommend not giving them your money.</p>
<p>It’s affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination, but there is no mention of its religious affiliation on its website, and there are no required religious courses.</p>
<p>If it’s a Disciples of Christ (Congregationalist), its Christian tradition is likely completely history. Remember …Oberlin, Grinnell, Olivet, Defiance … and a whole bunch more were founded in this faith but long ago abandoned any of what they saw as intellectual trappings.</p>
<p>I attended a Catholic undergraduate institution with the majority of students being either Catholic or Muslim. And really, both Catholic and Muslim students’ presence on campus was very pervasive. We had a large core (recently reformed) and it required a number of theology classes: Introduction to Catholic Teachings, Sacred Scriptures, and two electives. I took an Introduction to Judaism class while there, so it is not only Catholic theology that is taught there (although most classes are Catholic theology). </p>
<p>I considered myself to be agnostic when I started there as a Freshman and now consider myself to be agnostic theist (ie: I don’t believe that the existence of God can really be proven but I believe that the existence of a God is possible/I choose to believe that God could exist; it’s complicated and I don’t explain it very well). </p>
<p>You should be fine at a college like Loyola. While you may find individual students (at my school, individual Catholics) who are not so accepting of others’ religions/always trying to witness to you, it really isn’t as bad as you may fear, those students are actually few and far between, which surprised me when I started at my institution. And despite public misconception, the Catholic Church is usually pretty accepting of others’ beliefs, as long as its not religious perversion.</p>