Non-Catholics at BC

[saintnicko]

i was just wondering if the MDiv at Boston College is just for Catholic students or not. i looked on their website and couldn't find any stuff about it. i know that notre dame only lets catholics get their mdiv, but i didn't see what BC's take is. any info?

[sacklunch]

BC officially takes anyone. We have plenty of non-Catholics, although admittedly most of the students here are Catholic, and I don't think I have met an MDiv student that is not. However, there are plenty of non-Catholics, such as myself.

good luck.

Edited March 3, 2012 by jdmhotness

[Emma Maroon]

eh, I hadn't thought about that. I'm not Catholic and just got admitted to the MDiv at BC. I did see that a lot of the pastoral requirements are liturgical/Church related, but I assumed that since they accepted non-Catholics that Christians of other denominations would have other ways of getting those pastorally things (for instance, classes in the BTI).

But you haven't met any M.Divs that aren't Catholic? That puts a damper on my Boston College joy.

[sacklunch]

I should have mentioned that I hardly spend any time at all at the STM, so my opinions should not really be bothered with .

I think out of the two years I have been here I have taken maybe 4 or 5 classes at the STM. Most of my classes are spent in the BC theo (main campus) department. There no one gives a crap if you're Catholic, an atheist, whatever, so I enjoy most my time there.

And you're right, you can very easily fulfill your requirements elsewhere. Both of my ethics requirements I took through the BTI, for instance. I went to a Jesuit undergrad, so I'm not 'opposed' to the idea of Catholic ethics, I'm just rather burnt out on them to be honest, and truth be told, at times the homogeneity of BC drives me batty.

Although I'm not sure YDS or PTS would be much different. If it helps, I know quite a few people here who turned down HDS or YDS to come here. I have visited YDS and it seemed to be more or less the same type of environment, albeit perhaps more Protestant. As you know, the plus about BC, or HDS, is the ability to choose between literally hundreds of courses. That's why I ended up coming here.

cheers.

[sacklunch]

I'd echo jdmhotness that denomination doesn't matter at the BC Theo. department. A couple of my Boston roommates were PhD students there; also, I've got a couple Methodist friends there but none of them are MDiv. Hope that helps!

Indeed. I'm better friends with the PhD students here than I am most the STM folks (I don't think any of them are Catholic). I talk to two of the STM folks regularly that I met in class, but these were BC theo bible courses, so again, my opinion of the STM is fairly biased. I do live with quite a few STM peps now, and occasionally we chat about the department, so I get most my "insider" info from them. Not surprisingly, they are all Catholic. In short, if you want to be immersed in a fully Catholic, BC bubble, there is PLENTY of room for that. If not, there are plenty (tons, in fact) of courses that are historical-critical that don't give a hoot what, if any, faith you are.

[Balatro]

Yea, BC is for obvious reasons heavy on the Catholics, BU heavy on the Methodist, HDS is hard to get a feel for sometimes but I ran into a lot of UUs and "religiously curious", PTS heavy on the Presbyterians, YDS with the Episcopalians, and Vandy with Methodist as well.

They all lean one way or the other (some more obviously than others) but a good way to gauge a school's focus/interests is to look at the faculty and see what theologians they specialize in. It's not a catch all but it's a nice base to start with.