Our Catholic Identity

We're proud of our Catholic identity, and I mean by that we love the Pope, we like the Church, we root our instruction in the Catholic intellectual tradition, which means you will also study Hegel, and Nietzsche. But you'll study Augustine and Plato and Aristotle and Aquinas, and you will be given an introduction to the real masters, and you won't be in some school where they try to indoctrinate you in some liberal, secular ideology that ignores the great masters that really have a lot to teach us today. So, by being rooted in our faith, we are also very open to people of other faiths, or no faith at all. To us, the beauty of an institution is the diversity we want our student body to show; That you won't be surrounded just by people who look like you, pray like you, think like you, vote like you. We think diversity is good. We think it challenges you to grow. It encourages you to meet people of different types because when you leave the stage and get your diploma, you're going to go out into a world that's different. And you have to be ready to engage it, but you also have to be rooted. Rooted in faith, open to the world. So, for Catholic students, there's no mandatory Mass attendance. We do expect them to go to Mass on Sunday. It's not our word, that one came out of the Commandments, right? So there's an expectation of students to go to Mass on Sunday, and thankfully, I think nearly all of our students that are Catholic go to Mass on Sunday. We think that's great. So, what we want to do is provide an environment that's conducive to spiritual growth. When you're a 17 or 18 year old man or woman, you've been fortunate if you're Christian to be raised in a Christian home, and when the question Jesus raises of, "Who do you say that I am?" "Well, some say the Prophet, some say Elijah, Moses…" "Well, who do YOU say that I am?" That's a question college students have to answer for themselves. Mom and Dad can't answer that question for them. And that requires a free will assent. So, we don't like indoctrination. We don't want people to feel uncomfortable about matters of faith. We do invite. We do avail. But we want people to choose this freely because virtue to be virtue has to be practiced in freedom. It cannot be imposed. If it's imposed upon you, you don't own it, you don't believe it, and you won't live it.