Religion on campus?

DelphicOracle
Mon, 15 Feb 2016 19:05:06 +0000

Hi jran, I’m a senior at CUA. Masses are not required. You only have to go to the basilica at the very beginning and very end of your undergraduate career, when you meet as a class. Required theology classes are mostly of your own choice. Your freshman year you will have to take an introductory course that all freshmen take, but you get to choose three other theology courses. I took two courses about violence and suffering in the Bible and I took another one about women in the Bible, but there are classes on different religions, too! I only chose not to take these because I was already pretty familiar with world religions. I learned a great deal from the theology classes I chose.

Campus Ministry sponsors a lot of events. These events are not required and you don’t need to be praying or something to go to them. They have an event at the end of the year to celebrate the end of classes which pretty much everyone goes to. They also have service events which anyone can volunteer for. They have a space in one of the buildings just like every other large club. Every dorm has a resident minister whom residents can confide in; they often host theological events in the dorms, like talks or something, but they aren’t boring and often involve free food, which is pretty valuable to a college student. No one is pressured to be involved with Campus Ministry. I am not a very religious person and I don’t really have a problem with any of it.

CUA will likely never be able to officially recognize a pro-choice group, but we do have an LGBT group that has gained a lot of recognition in the past year. Supporting that doesn’t always equate to a certain belief on pro-life/pro-choice issues, but it is something progressive. We have plenty of clubs and activities to participate in that are not religiously affiliated.