Catholic Studies at Emory
Emory University is a favorable environment for the study of Catholicism at undergraduate, masters (MDiv and MTS), and doctoral levels. While Emory cannot offer the immersion in Catholic culture, the episcopal oversight, and the links to religious orders that are on offer at Catholic universities, we can offer to inquisitive and searching students, both Catholic and non-Catholic, whether liberal or conservative, a setting in which they can study and explore Catholicism freely, and in which the only essential orthodoxy is mutual respect, honesty, and desire for truth. Here Catholic studies are an academic rather than a confessional field, although most of the scholars focusing on it are themselves Catholic.
In 2002, Russell Richey, Dean of Candler School of Theology, appointed an ad hoc committee, with members both from Emory College (the University’s undergraduate school) and from Candler School of Theology (an official seminary of the United Methodist Church), to assess the resources and potential for Catholic studies at Emory and to suggest ways of expanding and enriching the field. The Committee identified Emory’s ecumenical ethos, its faculty, and its libraries as the University’s chief assets in Catholic studies. The Committee noted too that the Aquinas Center of Theology, an independent affiliate of Emory that is historically connected to the Dominican Order, has enhanced Catholic studies at Emory, chiefly by funding professorships, but also by organizing occasional symposia and conferences. The Aquinas Center has endowed a permanent chair in Catholic theology in the Theology School and regularly appoints visiting professors (usually Dominicans). Noting that Emory College is the most fertile ground for Catholic studies at this time, the Committee recommended the establishment of an undergraduate minor in Catholic studies and of an interdisciplinary, inter-departmental course that would be central to the minor. The same committee has constructed this web site.