A Brief History of Catholic Higher Education

In his encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II declared, “Born from the heart of the Church, a Catholic University is located in that course of tradition which may be traced back to the very origin of the University as an institution.” Whatever they are doing and wherever they are headed now, all modern Western universities trace their origins back to the medieval Catholic universities, beginning with Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and Salerno in the eleventh century. After the Reformation, universities divided along confessional lines. Eventually, universities were founded by secular entities such as the modern state or other smaller local governments.