Its interdisciplinary nature allows students to encounter the beauty and vitality of Catholicism as it is expressed across the disciplines. By examining the role Catholicism has played in various cultures, students are challenged to take seriously its influence in every aspect of intellectual, spiritual and social life. Because of its emphasis on close interaction between faculty members, students, and alumni, those who choose to participate in the program enter into a unique type of intellectual community. Such community, singularly lacking in today's impersonal world, can be instrumental in forming character and good intellectual and spiritual habits. The program is flexible.
Most courses are cross-listed with other departments.
Students majoring or minoring in other disciplines are invited to take an occasional course in the program. Such courses can shed light on the religious and humanistic dimensions of the various disciplines. The program offers the student the possibility of connecting Catholicism with history, politics, art, literature, music. There is the opportunity to travel to the Cloisters in New York to experience the interaction of Catholicism, architecture and art. There is the opportunity to listen to the ancient and living tradition of Gregorian chant, study the interplay of Catholicism and politics, the origins of the modern legal system in medieval canon law.