By Rachel Chiang | Reporter
Catholic Student Association (CSA) is Baylor’s only Catholic student organization and the first non-Baptist religious organization chartered since Baylor’s founding. Chartered in 2008, the organization promotes the intellectual and spiritual growth of its community through events geared toward service, faith and fellowship.
“We just really try to promote spiritual community fellowship,” San Antonio junior and CSA president Valerie Davila said. “We really want to help people grow in all aspects of their lives through spiritual activities like a good community.”
Fayetteville, N.C., senior and CSA fellowship officer Daniel Bryant said most students find CSA through Baylor Catholic Connect and attend St. Peter Catholic Student Center, which is located on the corner of Baylor Avenue and Ninth Street.
“We’re kind of the bridge between St. Peter’s and Baylor, so we’re just like the main Baylor Catholic organization,” Bryant said. “It’s basically a home, or organization for Catholic students at Baylor.”
Bryant said CSA hosts monthly meetings and has a walking rosary every Wednesday. Just last month, it also hosted a Eucharistic procession across campus.
“The Baylor community has always been really welcoming to people of different religious denominations,” Davila said. “The fact that they let us have that procession on campus was super awesome and something we didn’t know we would be able to do.”
Davila said the Spiritual Life Center has been really great about making sure CSA has its voice heard and is able to be represented on campus.
Davila also said it is really nice to be able to have healthy conversations with people of other denominations, and it’s interesting to see what their differences and similarities are.
Bryant said he has made many friends who are centered on Christ and share common interests and goals through CSA, and finding that community at Baylor has been great.
“For me, I converted here at Baylor,” Bryant said. “I was a Lutheran, and I don’t know, just finding that spiritual home here at Baylor and CSA was great to get involved and reach out to that community while I was in the process of converting. So yeah, it’s just great to have a Catholic community here at Baylor.”
Davila said her hope for the organization is to maintain and expand upon that community and those experiences for students at Baylor.
“I really hope CSA is able to maintain this hominess that we have,” Davila said. “Because even though we have a lot of members, we still kind of have this comfort to us that makes people feel at home.”
