This is common thinking about Jesuits, that they are very different than other orders. The current Pope is often cited as evidence of a liberal church and progressive order. The current Pope accepts gays and lesbians as God’s children but has recently stated on several occasions the church will never accept gay marriage. Jesuits are not pro-choice nor do they approve of pre-marital sex. A lot about Jesuits is urban myth.
Bates – you’re right. Catholic U would be more conservative than ND. Since CUA operates as an arm of the U.S. Catholic Church, rather than being run by a more autonomous separate religious order.
But even a fairly conservative Catholic place like ND is laid back as compared to, say, a BYU or an evangelical Christian college.
@northwesty I think Catholic U actually is under the authority of the Pope.
Notre Dame has Catholic trappings and attracts many Catholics due to its status as the de facto ‘flagship’ Catholic University in the US. Frankly, no Catholic University that is well-known enough outside of the Catholic Community is likely very Catholic in its teaching methods or even its community. Most Catholics who adhere closely to the faith are appalled by many of the behaviors that the Catholic Universities do.
If you are not Catholic or are not looking for a Catholic education, by all means choose any of those schools as they are effectively Catholic in name only.
Bates – I think CUA is run by the U.S. Catholic bishops, who of course answer to the Pope. But no religious order involved, which is unusual (maybe unique?) among Catholic colleges in the U.S.
There is a huge difference between your typical Jesuit father teaching at a university and the parish priest you see at Mass on Sunday. Absolutely huge. There may not be so much difference between the Jesuit teaching at St. Joes and the Augustinian teaching down the road at Villanova.
DFB – the 46% number is really misleading. There’s a few frats, for example, at Georgetown. But Georgetown’s policy is to refuse to support or recognize any traditional fraternities. They just don’t completely ban kids from forming frats on their own independent of the school. I believe the same goes for Fordham, BC, Holy Cross. There’s only a very few Jesuit schools that support and have any kind of fraternity system. St. Joes might be the biggest – but that’s only about 20% of the students.
Santa Clara doesn’t support the Greek system either. There are a handful of Greek groups, but less than 2% of the students are Greek. No houses on campus. No official recognition by the school at all.
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is a huge difference between your typical Jesuit father teaching at a university and the parish priest you see at Mass on Sunday.
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Yes, that’s because priests who belong to a religious order, like the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), take a vow of poverty. Diocesan priests do not. Diocesan priests are allowed to own their own cars, own/inherit property, keep royalties for any books they write, etc.
One of my co-workers is a USD alum and loved the school. Says the academics are top notch.
If you are willing to consider one more California school, check out Loyola Marymount in L.A. I know a non-Catholic family whose daughter was deciding between SCU and LMU. Received a much better FA package from LMU and enrolled there. She really liked LMU.
The theology/philosophy requirement is easily satisfied in 2 years at the Catholic colleges that I know of.
My niece just graduated from USD and really loved it. She did go to a Catholic high school and already knew quite a few kids who had gone to her high school, even though it was 1000 miles away. She enjoyed the religious nature of the school, and for her it was a big part of the school. Not saying it has to be, but it was for her. A lot of the catholic high schools serve as kind of ‘feeder schools’ to the catholic universities around the country. Her brother went to a Jesuit high school, ended up at the state flagship, but he applied to were U of Portland and Marquette. The high school guidance counselors steer them to the catholic schools and know how to get the scholarship money too.
I agree with @happy1 above where the advise was to be tolerant and respectful, expect to take a religious course or two (many options), and expect there to be religious people and symbols around the school - like the great big Cathedral in the middle of campus! Expect there to be a lot of religious ‘things’ around graduation and other events. The mass at my niece’s graduation was at least as important as the graduation itself (and graduation itself had 2-3 priests as speakers and of course started with prayers). Teams will have prayers before games.Their stadium, their rules. On the other hand, if a student of another religion has a special request (no classes on religious holy days, special dietary laws) I think the schools would go out of their way to accommodate those religious needs too.
These schools aren’t Catholic in name only, they are Catholic schools. I know the priest who runs the Jesuit college group in DC. Wonderful person, but he is a priest first and his job is to coordinate policies among the 30 or so Jesuit schools in the US (not including BC and Georgetown). Some of these policies are administrative ( tuition exchange rules?) or academic (course offerings), but some are religious. They welcome all faiths or no faith, welcome all kinds of opinions, but you won’t be seeing any gay marriages performed in their chapels or a big box of condoms on the desk at the student union.
A non catholic here that sent kids to a Jesuit high school (all boys) and a catholic high school (all girls) and loved it (public schools prior to HS). Very familiar with both USD and SCU, with one attending SCU this fall. I find the philosophy at Jesuit schools is to educate the whole person more than a religious bend, they want a well rounded, confident person to graduate. Concern for others, community and the world is present throughout, which is not being pushed through religion, just a state of mind they encourage throughout. One of mine felt USD had too much a roman catholic feel to it, can’t help it with the architecture there. I wouldn’t give a second thought to attending either as a non-catholic, but SCU seems less “religious” to me. The couple religion classes required aren’t really that different from diversity courses found in core requirements at other privates. Also, frats are not “endorsed” by SCU. They exist and run outside the school. If you ask about them at orientation or info sessions that is pretty much all they say about them.
I went to a Jesuit school and I am not catholic. No issues at all. I learned how to write well in those philosophy and theology classes. Ethics was also stressed. Size of the school was perfect for me and school spirit was excellent.
Italics my insertion.
There are Catholic colleges FAR more conservative that ND or Catholic. Check out the Franciscan U of Steubenville or Ave Maria or other schools on the Newman society list. These are schools where non-Catholics likely could feel uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s changed, but at least a year or two ago Franciscan listed homosexuality as one the of the behaviors to be covered in their psychology class on deviant sexual behavior.
I’m a huge fan of Jesuit schools for anybody and everybody. Education is the Jesuit’s thing, and they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. If you’re uncomfortable being around the trappings of religion, then yes, you’d be uncomfortable. These are Catholic schools, religion is a presence. But the Jesuits believe in being open and inclusive and inquisitive rather than closed-minded. D has even had married gay professors at Loyola Maryland, totally against the grain of other Catholic schools in the news for firing openly homosexual teachers.
Jesuit schools typically have a strong core curriculum that includes reading many of the great thinkers throughout civilization (yes, a lot of dead white guys, but D also read books from other cultures and studied the Koran to an extent). They will typically encourage different viewpoints - they value civilized discourse.
DS is headed off to a Jesuit university and is non-Catholic and likely agnostic at best. In addition to the programs that he wants they have a strong core curriculum with a great focus on philosophy and history as well as lower and upper division classes in all major subject areas. Fore religion one either takes world religions (his choice) or a more Catholic focused class. There are even wider options for the upper division religion course to suit Catholics, non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians. An ethics class is required along with 3 other philosophy classes. There is a great focus on care, nurturing and growth of the whole person which so far in our experience runs across campus areas from admissions and orientation, to administration, to the student services and programs, to the academic classes and professors. The prime directive seems to be developing your God-given gifts to use for the betterment of society and the world. That still works if you believe in the end goal but don’t think your gifts are God-given (or at least not in a Catholic way). It would be a more strained fit if you don’t buy into any of the altruistic end goals.
Don’t know what part of the US you are concentrating in, but other Jesuit in the midwest are Marquette, St. Louis University, Creighton, Loyola (Chicago) and Xavier (Cincinnati). My neighbor’s daughter goes to Creighton and loves it.
It’s been 30 years, but I loved my four years at Santa Clara. Coming from a Charismatic tradition, I had no issues with the priest, or voluntarily attending mass with fellow students. I knew nothing about mass when I entered SCU. Although I was in Engineering, I talked about life and theology many, many times with the various priests. The President of the University lived in our dorm for several years, had an open door policy, and the Jesuit vow of privacy meant that no topics were off limits. Several times a year I would have a discussion with the president of Santa Clara in his simple dorm room.
It was beautiful then, and more beautiful now. Can’t beat the weather or the short weekend trips to Santa Cruz.
But, no issues with not being Catholic. Jesuits are very accepting, gracious and thoughtful. I’ve also been wonderfully married to a Catholic for the past 28 years, and I would love for my youngest son to give SCU a chance.
My daughter attends Saint Mary’s Notre Dame, a women’s Catholic university and has made several friends that are atheists which I find surprising for such a small school, less than 1500 enrolled. Her college, together with UND has a very active LGBT club and seem to welcome students of many faiths. Ironically, she’s probably felt more pressure from non-believers that try to “convert” her rather than the other way around!
Only know Georgetown on the East Coast. Our tour guide took a course in Existentialism for one of his theology courses. They were one of the first colleges in the country to have an imam on campus. (They also have a rabbi and a priest, not sure if they have something Christian but protestant.)
Oh, Georgetown has many more than one priest.
There is a wide range of Catholic, even Jesuit colleges. The Francisans may be progressive but Franciscan University of Stubenville is probably the most orthodox Catholic university in the US.
I think there’s a big difference between Georgetown and Notre Dame. At least for jewish students. At Georgetown I don’t think there would be any issue. At ND you will be as one of my partners says who attended " THE Jew". There are just so few Jews so that part of your identity is really front and center. It may not cause any issue but many people myself included wouldn’t want to be in a situation like that.