Rosary at Loyola:A Case Study in the Collapse of Catholic Identity

Rosary at Loyola: A Case Study in the Collapse of Catholic Identity

Praying the Rosary on a Catholic campus ought to be a peaceful, even ordinary act of faith. Yet at Loyola University Chicago—named for the founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius—such prayer provoked outrage. Volunteers from Tradition, Family, Property (TFP) Student Action came to offer reparation after a campus drag show that contradicted Catholic teaching on chastity and the dignity of the human person. Instead of respectful silence, they were met with jeers, curses, and even spitting. Students shouted, “God made me gay,” while Rosary prayers were drowned out by chants of “Aggressor!” and accusations of “child abuse,” even as defenders insisted: “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.”

The video footage forces a painful question: would St. Ignatius recognize the institution that bears his name? Events at odds with the faith are embraced in the name of “inclusion,” while those who uphold perennial doctrine are mocked and marginalized. Loyola thus provides a stark case study in the broader collapse of Catholic identity in higher education.

The Jesuit drift
Loyola is not unique. Across America, Catholic universities have accommodated the spirit of the age at the expense of fidelity to the Gospel. At the University of Notre Dame, America’s flagship Catholic institution, administrators defended a publicly funded drag performance in November 2023 as an exercise of “academic freedom.” Students protesting the event argued that drag culture “defiles femininity” and undermines the dignity of women, yet the performance proceeded under official sanction¹.

At John Carroll University in Ohio, another Jesuit school, the administration in 2019 cancelled a longstanding drag show out of concern that it would cause “divisiveness.” The decision sparked a backlash, with some students insisting that banning the event betrayed Jesuit values of inclusion and hospitality. The controversy revealed the underlying confusion: Catholic identity was not upheld as a standard but subordinated to the competing claims of diversity politics².

Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States, likewise illustrates the tension. The university has a long record of inviting speakers who openly contradict Church teaching on life and marriage, while simultaneously restricting the visibility of orthodox Catholic groups. On one infamous occasion, the name of Jesus was covered during a presidential address on campus. Such actions prompted protests from alumni and Church authorities, but the trend toward accommodation of secular norms has continued³.

The European parallel
The crisis is not confined to the United States. The Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, founded in 1425 as one of Europe’s great Catholic institutions, has become a symbol of secularisation. In 2011, it removed “Catholic” from its official Dutch title, rebranding itself as “KU Leuven.” The decision was justified in the name of pluralism and academic freedom, but it marked a deliberate break from ecclesial oversight and historic mission⁴. Today, Leuven is a leading European research university, but one in which Catholic identity is vestigial rather than formative—an example of how Catholic universities globally have redefined themselves away from their founding charisms.

The UK case
Britain presents a similar picture. St Mary’s University, Twickenham, the largest Catholic university in the country, has in recent years courted controversy over its direction. Founded in 1850 by the Vincentians to train teachers rooted in the Catholic faith, St Mary’s has become increasingly aligned with secular academic norms. Critics note its public partnerships with organisations promoting gender ideology and its ambiguous witness in the area of Catholic moral teaching. While still formally Catholic, the university has faced scrutiny from both clergy and laity for a reluctance to speak clearly against cultural currents hostile to the Church⁵. What was established as a Catholic teacher-training college for the formation of future generations risks following the same path of institutional drift seen at Leuven, Georgetown, and Loyola.

The faith exodus
The identity crisis of Catholic universities has measurable consequences. Studies repeatedly warn that Catholic young people are more likely to lose their faith during the college years than at any other time. One widely cited figure indicates that as many as eighty-five percent abandon regular practice while attending Catholic institutions, a pattern linked to the absence of clear doctrinal witness and the dominance of cultural conformity on campus⁶.

Research by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) offers a nuanced picture: Catholic students at Catholic colleges are somewhat more likely to retain an interest in religious belief than peers at secular schools. By junior year, eighty-seven percent said adherence to religious teaching remained important. Yet conviction often erodes in practice. Only fifty-six percent opposed abortion, and barely one in three opposed same-sex marriage, underscoring the fragility of formation even within a “Catholic” environment⁷.

Loyola as microcosm
The Rosary incident at Loyola crystallizes these wider trends. The Jesuit name remains, but the mission is blurred. Official policies of “equity and inclusion” extend welcome to lifestyles contrary to the Gospel, while students praying in fidelity to Catholic moral teaching are treated as aggressors. Catholic identity risks becoming a branding device rather than an animating principle.

The deeper tragedy is not merely administrative drift but spiritual scandal. As Our Lord warned: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones” (Luke 17:2). When Catholic universities celebrate error while punishing fidelity, they fail in their mission to form souls for Christ.

Conclusion
If St. Ignatius were to walk the campus of Loyola today, would he recognize his creation? The Jesuit founder envisioned universities as training grounds for discipleship, rooted in truth and devoted to the glory of God. What he would find instead is an institution where the Rosary provokes hostility and where inclusivity is interpreted against the very faith that once defined it.

The Rosary prayed in reparation at Loyola was more than a protest. It was a prophetic moment of witness. In the jeers, hostility, and chants of “Aggressor!” one hears the echo of Christ’s own words: “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you” (John 15:18).

This reality aligns with the warnings of the recent pastoral epistle In Omni Generatione: On the Prudent Formation of Young People in the Present Age, which observed that “institutions that once upheld the pursuit of wisdom now often undermine it; places that once nurtured virtue now promote vice; paths that promised stability now lead to uncertainty and debt.”⁸ The epistle reminded parents and educators that the choice of university is not merely an academic question but a spiritual one, for “the intellectual environment of many universities is no longer a marketplace of ideas but a factory of ideological formation.”⁹

The future of Catholic higher education will depend on whether institutions recover the courage to confess Christ in the face of opposition—or continue to surrender to the applause of the world at the cost of souls. As the Archbishop wrote: “Let us therefore walk as children of light, forming our youth not for the approval of the age but for the eternal glory of God.”¹⁰

¹ Catholic News Agency, Notre Dame Students Defend Dignity and Sanctity of Women Ahead of Campus Drag Show, November 2023.
² The Fire, John Carroll University Bans Student-Run Drag Show in Attempt to Avoid Controversy, March 2019.
³ The Washington Post, Obama at Georgetown: Religious Symbol Covered at White House Request, April 2009.
⁴ KU Leuven, History of the University, institutional archives; La Croix International, “Catholic University of Leuven drops ‘Catholic’ from Dutch title,” September 2011.
⁵ The Tablet, “St Mary’s urged to uphold Catholic ethos,” July 2019.
⁶ The Young Catholic Woman, Catholic Universities: A Threat to the Catholic Faith, 2017.
⁷ Archdiocese of Baltimore, reporting on CARA study, Catholics at Catholic Colleges Less Likely to Stray from Church, February 2018.
⁸ In Omni Generatione: On the Prudent Formation of Young People in the Present Age, Archbishop of Selsey, 14 August 2025, §Carissimi.
⁹ Ibid., §The Crisis of Higher Education.
¹⁰ Ibid., §Conclusion.