Going to School and My Faith

  • Thread starter Thread starter OnAJourney
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
O

OnAJourney

Guest
In about a year or so I’m planning on going to school and getting my degree. I have concerns about whether I’ll be able practice my faith as a Catholic without some level of opposition. I worry more about opposition and pushback because I’ll be living in a part of the US that is generally home to a lot of people who scoff at certain teachings of the Church.

I have bad anxiety as it is and this has worried me a bit more recently
 
Last edited:
Don’t believe everything that “outrage media” tells you.

Find the local Newman Center, the Catholic Campus Ministry, FOCUS or Varsity Catholic. If there is not a Newman Center campus, find out which parish serves the campus and go get registered. Join the Knights of Columbus, volunteer for the food pantry, become part of that parish community.

The chances of you minding your business, being kind and joyful then POP someone on campus walks up to you you verbally or physically assaulting you because you are Catholic is not very likely.
 
It’s more of the social pressure. Being called a bigot etc
 
If we behave as commanded by Christ, we would never exhibit bigotry! In fact, we are commanded to fight against such horrible things.
 
I agree, and I wouldn’t act with bigotry. But we know that given a lot of misunderstandings about the church and what it teaches on certain things, that can create problems. It would appear from where I’m standing that academia is a bit unwelcoming
 
It is our mission, yours and mine, to dispel those misunderstandings. “Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven” “By this will all men know you are my disciples, that you love one another” and 1 Corinthians 13 will all serve you well!
 
Maybe for your own sake you can write down some questions that you really anxious about (concerning such things like SSA topics )answering and then you can go look it up on Catholic answers previous radio shows/website/ or just study what the church teaches on that if anything.
 
It is great that you are thinking forward on this; do NOT let it cause excessive worry or anxiety. Another poster mentioned looking for a Newman center, if there is one. There are also “mission” churches set up to work with students (St. Lawrence Center at KU). Once you know where you will go, ask for information on Catholic student groups on campus. Your peers can give you the best support and encouragement.
 
Given your situation, I’d suggest you choose a school with a strong Catholic campus ministry, Newman Center or similar. See if you can visit the Newman Center or equivalent program in advance and get an idea of the activiies, social stuff etc offered.

There’s a Newman Center for a state college near my house. I go to Mass over there quite often and they have a lot of social events like dinners, trips and other stuff for the students. I’m actually a bit jealous because I don’t recall the Newman Center at my college many years ago having anything like that, and in fact most of their focus was on people who were either graduate students or weren’t even attending the school and just lived in the area.
 
Newman Center at our State Uni has Mass on Sunday evening at like 8 or 9 PM. They have other Masses, but, that one was a favorite when I lived nearby.
 
Yeah, that is the main reason why I spend a lot of the time at the one near me. They have a 4:30 pm weekday Mass on 4 days out of the week, and a Sunday Mass at 9 pm.
I live within 5 miles of 4 very large parishes, and none of them have any Mass on weekdays after 9 am.
One has to drive 15-20 miles in rush hour traffic to find an afternoon Mass, and since most parishes only have the afternoon Mass on a couple days out of the week I have to use Masstimes and church hop all over two different dioceses.

When school is not in session, I am forced to either make these drives or get myself out to early morning Masses, which is difficult for me and also sometimes conflicts with my work schedule.
 
That is nothing new. I have had worse things than that happen to me. Today we have something called civil rights and those civil rights are supposed to protect us also.
 
If you don’t say anything how will anybody know.
If someone asks you to do something wrong I recommend saying “no” or “no thank you”
If someone persists then that would be called sexual harassment.
 
A lot of good insight already. I would agree most that being involved with the Newman Center will probably be very helpful. I would imagine, knowing the part of the country you’re going, that if you go to a university of any decent size, there will be a Newman Center. Because, there will be practicing Catholics there. And, I think, in hostile climates, faithful Catholics form even stronger bonds.

Personally, I went to school in the Bible Belt. And our school had a rocking campus ministry. I made most of my friends at the Newman Center. In more than 4 years at college, I maybe only experienced a couple of times in classes or in other situations where I was identintified as “that Catholic guy”. Most of the time no one will know. Especially if you’re heavily involved in the Newman Center. If you live and make friends with bunches of secular students, then its going to be more difficult for you, yeah.

My freshman year, one of my randomly assigned roommates was an atheist. And we did butt heads a bit. There’s another time that came to mind, where me and some of my Catholic friends went to a party. And we saw a student who was an abortion clinic escort. He recognized us because we would pray outside the abortion clinic. He gave us a really funny look when he recognized us lol.

As far as academia, we had very liberal professors. But, there’s no reason most of them will even learn you’re Catholic or your religious beliefs. Maybe in a few classes it will come up, but, a lot of people will have a lot of different beliefs. In the classes where its going to come up, the professors should be pretty open to and respectful of everyone. It came up for me in philosophy and history classes. As long as you can write a good paper, you should get a good grade.
Admittedly, our student body was pretty conservative, being in the South. But, college isn’t all about arguing politics. In a classroom setting, all views should be respected. In social settings, hang out with Catholics. That way you won’t have to worry about people disapproving of you just because of your beliefs (which, you don’t want to be friends with someone like that anyways). God willing, you’ll make friends with people who don’t share your beliefs. And those friendships are always rewarding (I find).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top