Jesuit Institution

As a Jesuit university, Loyola is committed to the belief that Christianity presents a worldview that is meaningful in any age. Although the message of Christianity is not wedded to any given philosophy, science, art, or politics, it is still not compatible with every point of view.

The person is central in a Catholic university. Its task is to equip its students to know themselves, their world, their potential, and their Creator. To perform this function properly, a Catholic university must strive to be one academic community composed of administrators, faculty, staff, and students, both laypersons and religious. This community must be composed in a manner fitting to our pluralistic society and ecumenical age. It can, therefore, be made up of many whose modes of commitment to university aims differ: of those who have dedicated their lives to the Christian faith commitment, of those who live non-Christian faith commitments, and of some who live no formal faith commitment at all. Religious and non-religious, Christian and non-Christian, all will dedicate themselves to the mission of this Catholic university, each in his or her own way. All will cooperate in the search for truth, either by exploring the inner dynamism of Christianity and its implications for the present or by provoking the quest for truth in others. All are bound together by a common search for knowledge. All are dedicated to the discovery and promulgation of truth.

The community in quest of truth has a reverence for creation, not only the creations of God and the creations of people, but for life itself as a fountain of creativity. Reverence for creation fosters universal concern and dedication. All who are concerned for and dedicated to the truth are welcome in the Loyola community. Only those who condemn the commitments of those who seek the truth will not find a home here.

The Catholic university must foster among its students, its faculty, and the community a critical sense. To think critically one must have a place to stand. Criticism must be based upon agreement on basic values and principles. Without this there can be no meaningful disagreement. Loyola stands on its Catholic commitment. This commitment is not the end of a search, but the beginning of an inquiry into other traditions, other regions, and other religions. Loyola seeks to hand down a heritage even as it learns and teaches methods of thinking that will revivify the heritage and breach new frontiers of knowledge.