When Baylor University was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas, its co-founders, Reverend William Milton Tryon and Judge Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor, wanted to weave the Baptist faith into the daily curriculum. The third founding father, Reverend James Huckins, who was the first Southern Baptist missionary to Texas, cemented Baptist life into the University.
It was a time in American history when Catholicism was feared by many. Indeed, Judge Baylor was named the Grand President of Texas’ nativist party at a secret convention in Washington-on-the-Brazos on June 11, 1855. The nativists—or the Know Nothing Party, as they were referred to at the time—were a political movement that believed an alleged “Romanist” conspiracy to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States was being hatched by Catholics.
Despite its strong Baptist origins, Baylor University began to open its doors to other faiths. The Baylor Bulletin reported in 1911 that of the 892 enrolled students polled that year, 775 were Christian, while 117 were not. Of the Christian students, the vast majority (76.5 percent) were Baptist. However, it is important to note that two hardy souls were Catholics.
According to the HESA Baylor History Project, in the 1930s Baylor President Pat Morris Neff sought a peaceful balance between the Baptist student majority and those of other denominations. Despite his efforts, Baylor remained predominantly Baptist, and few opportunities existed for non-Baptist communities to flourish.
Dr. Michael Foley, professor of patristics and the first Catholic theologian hired at Baylor into the Great Texts program in the Honors College, recalled a story about Reverend Monsignor Mark Deering, who was known simply as “Father Mark” to the parishioners at St. Louis Catholic Church in Waco for more than 50 years.
“He was an incredibly charming Irish priest who did a lot to foster ecumenical relations between all Christians in Waco. And some of his best friends and supporters were Baptists here in town,” Foley said. “He was so popular that Baylor’s Department of Religion asked him to teach a class on Catholicism, which he did. However, there was still such a suspicion of Catholic clergy at that time that anytime he stepped foot on campus he had to sign in at Pat Neff Hall, and sign out.”
In 2005, Provost David Lyle Jeffrey was quoted in Baylor Magazine: “Baptists in Texas are a shrinking percentage of the totality of Texas, down to 25 percent, and our kind of Baptists, moderate Baptists, are a smaller percentage of that year by year. The students coming to Baylor are more and more likely to come from other denominations and backgrounds and experiences.”
A Modern Vision for Baylor University
In the early 2000s, the ambition to enter the top tier of American universities was integrated into “Baylor 2012,” a 10-year vision that outlined how the University would achieve new levels of excellence in its academic and community life while remaining faithful to its historic Christian mission.
Born in Washington, D.C., Dr. Thomas Hibbs served as the inaugural dean of the Honors College from 2003 to 2019 before becoming president of the University of Dallas from 2019 to 2021. Returning to Baylor as dean emeritus and Rayzor Professor of Philosophy, as a self-confessed “Yankee Catholic” he still finds it odd to end up flourishing at the nation’s largest Baptist university. He remembers how they expanded the faculty in the early 2000s.
“We were moving toward higher-level research and trying to attract faculty from many different Christian denominations who were interested in building a research institution with Baylor’s national and international reputation,” Hibbs said. In mid-December 2021, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education recognized Baylor as a Research 1 institution.
According to the Office of Institutional Research’s 2024 Fall Facts report, 17.4 percent of Baylor’s 2024 student population is Baptist, down from 26.5 percent in the 2018 report. At the same time, the number of Catholics attending the University has climbed to almost 17 percent. It should also be noted that Baylor students represent more than 40 religious identities in the 2024 report.
Dr. Scott Moore, associate dean in the Honors College and associate professor of philosophy and great texts, describes himself as “as green and gold as they come.” After a brief time as a fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame, he returned to Baylor in 1997 to take on a tenure-track position in the philosophy department. As a Baptist, Dr. Moore is excited about the students’ many and various religious affiliations.
“I think it adds a certain vitality to our campus. Especially for Hindu and Muslim students, I believe their parents want them to be in a place that values religion. So much of higher education is just predicated on a kind of thoroughgoing secularization thesis,” Moore said. “There’s this notion that somehow or another, smart people outgrow God. Baylor wants to be a place where religion can be thoroughly investigated, but also appreciated and practiced and engaged in a rich context of conversation and dialogue.”
The Challenges of Being Catholic at Baylor
Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies Dr. Francis Beckwith—who also serves as the associate director of the graduate program in philosophy—considered himself a Protestant when he was hired at Baylor in 2003. Dr. Beckwith left his Catholic faith as a teenager, and there was no pressure to be affiliated with any one Protestant denomination at the Evangelical Free Church of America-associated Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois, where he taught from 1997 to 2002.
“It was very homogeneous, so there weren’t many differing Christian backgrounds. So when I arrived at Baylor, I was surrounded by serious Christians from all different traditions for the first time in my career,” he said. “In C.S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity, he says that ‘Mere Christianity’ is the corridor, but you have to pick a room. After spending a couple of years at Baylor, I was drawn back to the church that my parents had baptized me in.”
Dr. Beckwith credits Baylor as being instrumental in his return to Catholicism. “Baylor is serious about its Christian mission, and you’re surrounded by faculty from a variety of different Christian traditions who take their faith very seriously.”
Although most of the current faculty are Baptist, Dr. Foley stated he has never felt any discrimination as a Catholic. When religious differences arise, he describes his colleagues’ perception of him as more of an exotic curiosity than a threat.
“There was nothing hostile, just inquisitiveness. They’d say, ‘I heard you believe in some weird things,’” he said. “And so immediately, they have to become apologists for their faith, but then that forces them to become more knowledgeable and articulate about their faith. So that’s a good challenge.”
Supporting Catholics on Campus
In the early 1950s, Catholic students from Baylor gathered in a house purchased by the Diocese of Austin on Seventh Street in Waco. This meeting place was called the Newman Club, named after Cardinal John Henry Newman, a 19th-century English theologian who was canonized as a Catholic saint in 2019. In the 1980s, the Diocese transformed the Newman Club into a ministry of St. Mary’s of the Assumption. From these humble beginnings, the Catholic Student Association was born.
Dr. Foley remembered when Baylor allowed non-Baptist religious groups to be acknowledged for the first time in its history. The Baylor Catholic Student Association (CSA) received official recognition on November 21, 2008. “This was a big deal, showing progress on the part of Baylor to build relations between Baptists and Catholics. It wasn’t always so rosy, so it’s even more of a wonderful story in which we see how much things have changed for the better.”
The CSA is the official student ministry that serves as a bridge between Baylor students and the St. Peter Catholic Student Center, an institution of the Diocese of Austin.
The Rev. Henry Finch is the rector of St. Peter Catholic Student Center. He takes pride in the fact that, on an average weekend, between 30 and 40 percent of Baylor students who identify as Catholic attend services.
“I actually attribute that high attendance to the influence of the Evangelical Baptist culture,” he said. “We run a couple of chapel sections for Catholic students here at St. Peter’s. If we want to do anything on campus, we work with the Catholic Student Association as a very helpful pastoral bridge between student activities and St. Peter.”
St. Peter has a ministry called the Gate, designed for freshman and transfer students trying to figure out how to navigate and maintain their transition to college. It was only offered for the fall semester in the past, but in starting in 2025 it will run for the full academic year. The student center also has five FOCUS missionaries—one of whom is a recent Baylor graduate—who run small group Bible studies.
“We have 20 different ministries here at St. Peter,” Reverend Finch explained. “We have a ministry that conducts some outreach to the local homeless population, and we have a group of students that run retreats for Catholic high school youth groups in the area. Perhaps the most interesting ministry is that we have a very robust Catholic sacred music program that includes singers and accompanists, and they’re mostly students from Baylor’s School of Music. We’re singing everything from Palestrina and Renaissance motets to 20th- and 21st-century pieces written for Catholic worship.”
The Catholic Student Association participates in the annual Baylor Church Fair for incoming students and organizes two dances each year, one in the fall and one in the spring.
“And now there are student groups of basically every major denomination on campus,” Dr. Beckwith said. “I really admire Baylor for pulling off this ecumenism while maintaining its roots in the Baptist church and its history as a Baptist university. I don’t know of any Catholic schools that have done anything quite like this. This certainly helps student recruitment and hiring new faculty. We know that faculty and students from many different Christian denominations, including Catholic, have felt welcomed here and have flourished.”
How Baptists and Catholics Benefit From Each Other
Although Baylor is opening its doors wide to students and faculty from many and various denominations, the institution’s underlying foundation remains the Baptist faith.
And that is not a bad thing, argues Dr. Beckwith. “This is going to sound weird for a Catholic to say this, but I think it’s better that Baylor be more intentionally Baptist. I think it is ironic or paradoxical that a religious university does better in welcoming people from other traditions when it is more tightly tethered to its own.”
Dr. Hibbs agrees. “As a Catholic, I’ve always thought that it’s really important for Baylor not to become just generically Christian. And Baylor has walked this line, being increasingly open to welcoming and supportive of non-Baptist Christian denominations while maintaining its roots in the Baptist church. I don’t think you can survive as an institution unless you have some kind of denominational identity.
“There’s been a positive embrace of students and faculty from these different faith traditions, and that’s slightly different than just being tolerant,” he continued. “I believe Baylor has been more tolerant, certainly, but I think Baylor’s done something that’s much more important in a Christian community. Baylor has allowed these communities to feel like they belong here and have something significant to contribute, and that has grown over time.”
The final word goes to Dr. Moore. “I think there’s a lot of mutual give and take, and I have not only become a better Christian by my involvement with my Catholic friends, but I have become a better Baptist. And I would like to think that my Catholic friends are growing in their own Christian faith and even in their Catholicism by their steady engagement with the Baptists on our campus.
“This is a highway where the road runs two ways,” Dr. Moore added, “and we’re both benefiting.”
Francis Meets Pope Francis
Dr. Francis Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy & Church State Studies and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy, had the opportunity to meet the Pope some 12 years ago. “The Vatican asked me to deliver a lecture at a conference, and afterward, I was approached by the priest who had invited me, and given tickets for my wife and me to attend mass in St. Peter’s Square. We got to sit close to the altar.
“I spoke to the Holy Father for maybe 15 or 20 seconds. He was not fluent in English, so when I handed him a recent book I’d written, I pointed to my name on the cover, and said, ‘That’s me’ in Spanish. He smiled because I have the same name.
“When I was in graduate school at Fordham in the late 1980s, I lived with my Italian grandmother in Brooklyn, and she was a very devout Catholic. She went to daily Mass and knew I was not in the church anymore. She was upset about that. If you look closely at my left hand in this photograph, you’ll see I’m holding my Grandma’s rosary beads. Her name was Frances.
“It was really emotional because my Grandma died in 2002, and never had the opportunity to see my return to the Catholic Church.”
