By Aimee McElreath, Campus News Editor
Although Saint Leo University is founded in Catholic roots, it admits students from every religious background. Because of this, there is a sense of diversity on campus, which strengthens Saint Leo’s community.
Dr. Randall Woodard, chair of Religious Studies at Saint Leo, shared how religious liberty of all religions affects student life on campus.
According to Woodard, Saint Leo is proud of its religious diversity even as a Catholic school, because despite religious differences, having students of various religious backgrounds allows practice the school’s Benedictine roots through radical hospitality.
“There’s a key element in Benedictine theology that you treat the stranger, and you treat the person who shows up just as you would Christ,” explained Woodard.
Benedictine hospitality is based on treating each person as those created in God’s image and likeness.
“Saint Leo has tried to retain certain elements of its Benedictine history and tradition,” said Woodard, “and that’s translated into what people here call radical hospitality, where instead of just treating people nicely, there’s an extra step [where]we try to treat the other person with an extra layer of hospitality.”
Aside from the practice of radical hospitality on campus, Saint Leo’s Catholic roots manifest in other ways.
“Not only do we have daily Mass and weekly Mass, we’ll also have the special Masses together as an entire community,” Woodard said.
These special Masses include Masses for returning students and Baccalaureate Masses, and Masses for graduating students. Additionally, all students take two religion classes to be formed and informed.
“There’s a focus on who are we becoming, what our deeper vocation is, and what we are really called to do as people and people of faith,” He elaborated.
“We’ve been fortunate where we’re not dealing with some more atypical events that have happened on other campuses, where there are tensions and angry protests that turn into violence,” said Woodard.
Dr. Woodard attributes the lack of violent encounters among religious groups on campus to Saint Leo providing an opportunity for students to respectfully and humbly discuss with one another, ask difficult questions, and learn about different faiths.
Additionally, Dr. Woodard shared that there are various opportunities that Saint Leo offers for religion to bring people together on campus.
University Ministry, for example, is considered a major place on campus for the Catholic faith to bring people together. It hosts weekly Bible study, Mass, Theology Thursday events, and retreats.
The Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies (CCJS), run by Dr. Matthew Tapie, offers opportunities for people of different faiths to gather. For instance, CCJS gathers to read scripture from various world religions.
Saint Leo’s Medical Humanities Club has brought people together through religious debates.
“It ended up being a really interesting back-and-forth dialogue between the Christian students and several Muslim students that were there,” Woodard commented, “[It was a] really awesome opportunity for people to learn about other people.”
On a related note, Woodard discussed Theta Alpha Kappa, Saint Leo’s Religion Honors Society, which students can contact to ask about religion on campus.
“The religion majors and minors are in our Honors Society,” said Woodard. “We try to offer a couple of social or educational events every year.”
Woodard also hopes to be able to take students in the organization on relevant religious field trips.
“We’ve taken students to a synagogue,” Dr. Woodard adds. “We’ve [also]done the Buddhist temple, so we’re looking at a couple of those ideas this year.”
Students on campus can attend Mass at the Saint Leo Abbey on weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday at 7:00 p.m., as well as gather in University Ministry in Men’s and Women’s groups every Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. Students can contact the director of University Ministry, Mary Keselicka, for more information through his email, mary.keselicka@saintleo.edu.
On the other hand, anyone can attend Truth-seekers Non-denominational Church led by Pastor Mike. Service is hosted at the Selby Auditorium every Sunday at 6:00 p.m., and Bible Study every Thursday at 7:15 p.m. at MMR in Apartment Six.
Although education is crucial to Saint Leo, religion and religious liberty play a major role in the gathering of its community.
