Yale Students Are Finding Their Way to Catholic Thought

In 1951, William F. Buckley Jr., in his seminal work God and Man at Yale, accused the university of teaching its students out of Christianity. Seventy-five years later, the university’s community members and outside journalists alike are trying to explain why some Yale students are finding their way back into the faith.

Buckley looked at mid-century Yale and saw an institution whose official intellectual culture was becoming secular and collectivist, even while the university retained the architecture, traditions, vocabulary, and overall pretext of Christianity. Where Christianity had once been the “guiding influence of private colleges and universities,” Buckley argued that the faith and its influence had “moved to the periphery of many institutions and, in some cases, disappeared altogether.”

About the Author

Raleigh Adams

Raleigh Adams is a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School. Her work has appeared in the Front Porch Republic, VoegelinView, and The Dispatch.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

In 1951, William F. Buckley Jr., in his seminal work God and Man at Yale, accused the university of teaching its students out of Christianity. Seventy-five years later, the university’s community members and outside journalists alike are trying to explain why some Yale students are finding their way back into the faith.

Buckley looked at mid-century Yale and saw an institution whose official intellectual culture was becoming secular and collectivist, even while the university retained the architecture, traditions, vocabulary, and overall pretext of Christianity. Where Christianity had once been the “guiding influence of private colleges and universities,” Buckley argued that the faith and its influence had “moved to the periphery of many institutions and, in some cases, disappeared altogether.”