Help finding Orthodox College

[JKsoren]

The University of St. Thomas - Houston, TX.

I recommend the Newman Guide To Choosing A Catholic College. A couple of years was spent researching and visiting the 224 Catholic colleges/universities in the U.S. They focused on characteristics such as: Catholic Identity and a fidelity to Church teaching. You can learn more at cardinalnewmansociety.org/

They are sort of the watchdog for Catholic colleges and hold them accountable.

Good luck!

Have you ever been to the University of St. Thomas? I currently live in Houston and have visited the school on several occasions. My wife and I even engaged some of their students in dialogue this summer. We don’t really think its a very Catholic school, not in the sense that the student body is overwhelmingly represented by faithful/God seeking students…like Franciscan University no doubt is (seems to be). In fact, besides the highly visible (and extremely ugly) chapel, you would hardly guess that the school is Catholic at all. The two groups of students we engaged certainly weren’t. I’m not judging them, I’m just saying that they were not interested in matters concerning the faith.

I think that the only thing the newman guide really measures is how many professors profess adherence to the maudatum at a given school (which, as I’ve said, doesn’t really mean much). If this is the case at St. Thomas, then fine, but it certainly has had very little impact on the student body. My impression is that St. Thomas is really more of a place where people go to school if they want to stay in Houston but didn’t get into Rice (and perhaps didn’t want to go to U of H in the “3rd ward” of the city). The school is in perhaps the “coolest” part of town, so I can see the attraction…but I seriously doubt that a lively Catholic faith community is a part of the drive for the overwhelming number of students that opt to go there. It’s no “Franciscan”, not by a long shot.

That being said, I wouldn’t recommend going to ANY of the schools in the Newman guide. They are not academically rigorous or well regarded, not cheap, and not good places to grow either spiritually or intellectually. In my experience, Franciscan, the pinnacle of such schools, is really a place for people to hide out instead of taking life head on. Its a place of fear and immaturity, and not terribly inspiring either.

 

[anode]

I think you need to broaden your college search by a wide margin. Notre Dame is a great school but if their apostasy bothers you then why not send your kids to a good university that doesn’t abuse the Catholic name? Your kid will get a better education and probably pay a lot less if they opt to go to a good state school over any of the “conservative Catholic colleges”. I personally think that Franciscan is a TERRIBLE school, I would never send any of my children here (I’m a parent of one daughter).

At big state schools you can at least have the opportunity (simply because of the size) to meet like minded Catholics and share fellowship.

also from the same poster:

That being said, I wouldn’t recommend going to ANY of the schools in the Newman guide. They are not academically rigorous or well regarded, not cheap, and not good places to grow either spiritually or intellectually. In my experience, Franciscan, the pinnacle of such schools, is really a place for people to hide out instead of taking life head on. Its a place of fear and immaturity, and not terribly inspiring either.

I have to agree with this as a result of my research on the USN&WR Guide. I was appalled at what some of those schools are putting forth as higher education. It is expensive for what you get, and wastes a lot of the student’s time. I don’t know what Newman was looking at, but it certainly wasn’t scholarship. What is a student to do with one of those degrees? Where can the students go, transfer, get into, what are they trained to do, if they don’t go onto higher education…somewhere else? If these schools are training their students for the priesthood and/or religious life, why not just say so?

Another thing I learned was that Aquinas College in Nashville, TN, one of the Newman schools, is a Baccalaureate College–South–tier 4, the bottom of the pile. It’s also the school where the Nashville Dominicans receive their college education, probably a certificate or diploma in elementary education. (I don’t know if it’s 2 or 4 years). What kind of education are they getting?

Not *all *Catholics slip into ‘sin and heresy’ at non-denominational schools. Some, being in the minority, strengthen their faith. In Atlanta, the best private school (K-12) is Protestant, quite evangelical its orientation. Jewish parents deliberately send their children there to get the feeling of being in the minority and hone their Jewish identity.

 

[RedSoxWife]

I understand what you’re saying. Respectfully, though, I think the publicity that stuff like that gets is way overblown. You’re talking about two weekends out of the year. I found it very easy to avoid the Vagina Monologues (which are no longer permitted to be held on campus) as well as the Queer Film festival (and ND doesn’t recognized a GLBT group). And in addition, you get the benefit of reading all the solid orthodox apologetic arguments against viewing these things which flood the campus newspaper every time something like that happens.

As for McBrien and Appleby, I managed fours years within their respective departments and never once had a class with either. I wasn’t even trying to avoid them, it’s just that with so many professors available, your odds of getting a bad apple are much smaller.

Although I recognize and admire this man’s concern for his daughter’s spiritual welfare, there’s also a cost associated with going to a smaller institution. You miss out on things like the Edith Stein Conference, having access to the most masses held on campus every day, the presence of the Basilica and the grotto, the option of joining several liturgical choirs, etc.

There’s something to be said for choosing a larger Catholic university, even if it isn’t flawless, for the sake the other educational, social, and yes, spiritual benefits that one can only receive there. Like all colleges, Notre Dame is what you make of it.

The argument that it’s only a few weekends a year is the same argument that the University of San Francisco is using when they honored a condom supporting Bishop (I just wrote a blog ranting about it). I know that if my husband had to pick again (he’s in the graduate theology program there) we would rather have our money go to a solidly Catholic school, rather than one that goes against it’s own mission statement on a fairly regular basis. Even if the big issues are “only a few times a year.” I can’t help but believe (and know in USF’s case) that those weekends are merely visible symptoms of a larger problem.

 

[ac_claire]

University of Dallas in Irving, Texas. www.udallas.edu Sophomores spend a semester in Rome at their Rome Campus. Solidly Catholic.

I’ll second this, with a caveat. I went to UD and it was solidly Catholic (class of 1999 ), but I have heard that it’s gone downhill somewhat in the past decade. I noticed even in my last year that it was slowly starting to take on some “state school” chartacteristics that were very un-UDish. So, I do recommend considering UD, but you might want to do as much research as you can about it first.

When I was there, it was an awesome Catholic school. It’s affiliated with the Cistercians, that kinda says it all.