Muslim students find welcoming presence on Catholic college campuses

Published: 2006-11-28

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- On Catholic college campuses across the country, it is not uncommon to find Muslim students praying in a makeshift prayer room or campus mosque five times a day. At Georgetown University in Washington, Muslim students also can speak regularly with an imam since the school became the first American university to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain seven years ago. Although there are no accurate figures on the number of Muslim students at Catholic colleges, the numbers have gone up in recent years, according to administrators who have seen more students participate in campus-sponsored associations for Muslim students. This increase is not just in large urban colleges either. At Benedictine University, just outside Chicago, approximately 15 percent of the school's 1,800 undergraduate students have identified themselves as Muslim, according to Mercy Robb, the university's executive director of public relations. Robb told Catholic News Service that the university attracts a lot of Muslim students because the school's "values are a fit for them personally."

Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .