“This Is the Easiest Persecution Anyone Could Ever Face”: “Counter-Cultural” Catholicism in US Public Universities

As “counter-cultural” Catholicism grows in the United States, public universities are increasingly positioned as “battlegrounds for the minds and souls of young people,” and Catholic campus ministries increasingly reflect trends of theological orthodoxy and “conservative” political alignment. In this paper, I analyze data from Catholic teacher candidates in public universities in the US Midwest (n≈50) to examine: How do Catholic teacher candidates in US Midwest public universities describe their teacher education programs and their Catholic identities in relation to movements of “counter-cultural” Catholicism? I discuss how some participants oppose their public teacher education programs, describing them as “one-sided,” “biased,” and “liberal.” Others, however, align with the justice-oriented curricula in their teacher education programs and disaffiliate or “diminish the label of being Catholic” because of the perception of Catholicism as “conservative.” Through this analysis, I reflect on the implications of rising “counter-cultural” Catholicism on public university campuses for the Catholic Church.