About Catholic Studies
The Catholic Church is both a religious institution and a body of believers. Over the centuries its members have involved themselves in the many different worlds in which they live. Artists, workers, philosophers, the poverty stricken, political leaders, tradespeople and farmers: Catholics have tended to interconnect what they believe with what they do. Their impact upon cultures throughout the world has been immense. At the same time, the Catholic Church as a formalized institution has developed a variety of approaches to God, the tangible world, and the nature and meaning of human existence and experience. The story of this church and its members, and the story of their interactions with history, the arts and sciences, human thinking and belief, all these together, in the dynamism and richness of their interplay, form the substance of the human culture which is Catholicism. That culture is the subject matter of Catholic Studies.
The goal of Catholic Studies at Georgetown is to develop an intellectual and academic approach to Catholicism which does justice to its full human reality and integrity as a culture. This goal both explains the reason for having a Catholic Studies Program within a University that identifies itself as a whole as Catholic, and also dictates the interdisciplinary approach which the program takes. Because Catholicism is not just an institution, a set of moral or ritual practices, a body of doctrine, or an individual or even communal experience, but all of these together and more, no one discipline or many disciplines functioning separately can properly understand it as a culture. An approach which not only collects but integrates the findings of the many academic disciplines which offer crucial perspectives on Catholic culture is required. The Catholic Studies Program is the location within the University where Georgetown consciously pursues its proper goal of offering students and faculty the opportunity to pursue an understanding of Catholicism through the type of genuinely interdisciplinary approach which its subject matter requires.
For these same reasons, Catholic Studies at Georgetown strives to be inclusive: it welcomes students and professors from widely divergent intellectual and religious backgrounds. Its goal is not to proselytize or to justify, but to study, explore, and understand.
The Interdisciplinary Program in Catholic Studies
The Catholic Studies Program is designed both for students wishing to pursue a minor and also for students interested in taking one or several courses on an elective basis which would expand and deepen their understanding of Catholicism. The Program sponsors a number of courses designed specifically to foster the interdisciplinary approach to studying Catholic culture, but it also draws widely on courses offered independently by various academic departments the subject matter of which as a whole or in substantial part deals with aspects of Catholicism.
The requirements for the minor and the interdisciplinary courses sponsored by the Catholic Studies Program which serve to fulfill those requirements are described on the Minor Requirements page.
