St. John Henry Newman and the Catholic campus

John Henry Newman was one of the great minds of nineteenth-century England: an Anglican scholar who became Catholic, a priest, a cardinal, and a celebrated writer on education. Pope Francis canonized him on October 13, 2019. In his homily that day, the Pope quoted Newman’s description of everyday holiness: “The Christian has a deep, silent, hidden peace, which the world sees not.”

From the Melvin Club to the Catholic center

According to the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter Empowered by the Spirit, Catholic campus ministry in the United States “began in 1883 at the University of Wisconsin with the founding, through lay initiative, of the Melvin Club,” and “a decade later the first Newman Club was established at the University of Pennsylvania.” It was named after Newman, whom the bishops call “the English leader in the nineteenth-century intellectual renewal.”

The Church’s commitment to every campus

Today, Church law asks each diocesan bishop to provide for students “even by erecting a parish or at least by designating priests stably for this,” and to ensure “that at universities, even non-Catholic ones, there are Catholic university centers which give assistance, especially spiritual assistance, to youth” (Code of Canon Law, can. 813).

That is why the Compass rates Catholic life at every college, not only at Catholic ones. A strong campus ministry at a state university can be a student’s parish, community, and school of discipleship. See the best Catholic campus ministries at public universities.