By Abby Rathburn | Staff Writer
Despite Baylor’s Baptist affiliation, Catholic students are just narrowly outnumbered by Baptist and nondenominational students.
As of fall 2025, 14.24% of Baylor’s student body are self-identified Catholics, ranking as the third largest religiously-identified group on campus behind only nondenominational and Baptist. Given differing theology, what draws Catholics to a Baptist university?
Middletown, R.I., freshman Thomas Miller said in his college journey, Baylor’s R1 status and academic rigor outweighed any differing ideologies.
“Really, what decided it for me between University of Dallas — which is a good Catholic university — and Baylor, was that there was just so much academic opportunity,” Miller said. “That’s what really sealed the deal for me.”
Greenville, S.C., freshman Jacob Sadowski added that many of the programs Baylor offers aren’t available at smaller universities. His priority was finding a university that offered courses in his areas of interest.
“I was specifically looking for a place that had both organ and classics, and there weren’t a lot of colleges that offered that,” Sadowski said. “You really had to look at big universities like Baylor to find that.”
Each of these students was well aware of the Catholic presence on campus before deciding to come here. For Miller, it came in the form of a professor’s book featured on The Lariat homepage.
“An article came up about Dr. Foley’s Dining with the Saints book,” Miller said. “I saw that article, and I was like, ‘That is pretty significant Catholic presence … for them to be repping his book.'”
Beyond feeling welcome, many Catholic students find that Baylor is nurturing their faith in a unique and special way. Woodbury, Minn., freshman Grace Turner felt that her exposure to other denominations encouraged her to dive deeper in her own faith.
“I went to a Catholic high school, and so I’ve pretty much grown up around Catholic,” Turner said. “I didn’t honestly know about other denominations before coming to Baylor. I think … it’s definitely encouraged me to look into my faith more and actually understand things.”
That same spirit of openness in conversations transfers over to how Catholics participate in Baylor spiritual events. Youngsville, La., freshman Andrew Terrebonne described how experiencing different forms of worship has broadened his understanding of worship.
“It’s all worship, and each person worships in their own particular way,” Terrebonne said. “Catholics have the mass, and then other denominations, they have things like Vertical … and I think it’s good to participate in both because they’re all praise, they’re all worship and the Lord loves them all.”
