Catholic Theological Union (CTU) is aprivate Catholic graduate school oftheology inChicago, Illinois, United States. It was formed inHyde Park as a union of schools from three Catholicreligious institutes and has since been sponsored by 24 institutes and Catholic faith communities. It is one of the largest Catholic graduate schools of theology in the English-speaking world, training men and women for both lay and ordained ministry within the Catholic Church.[5] It gained renewed attention in 2025 when alumnus Robert Francis Prevost, who earned aMaster of Divinity degree in 1982, was electedPope Leo XIV.[6]
During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a movement among some Union students and faculty in support of theordination of women within the Catholic Church; this included organizing a meeting on the CTU campus in 1976 of theWomen’s Ordination Conference and staging a protest at a 1981 ordination event at the nearbySt. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, with the latter being one of the events that led the Vatican to order an investigation of American Catholic seminaries.[6]
The school granted its first Master of Divinity degree to a woman in 1981.[6]
The Catholic Theological Union building is at 5416 South Cornell Avenue in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.In 2023, the campus of theLutheran School of Theology at Chicago relocated to the 4th floor of the James and Catherine Denny Center at the Catholic Theological Union. Construction of new facilities on the floor of the Catholic Theological Union had begun earlier: the space includes four classrooms; two zoom rooms, thirty office spaces; a prayer and meditation room, a café, a chapel, and a grand hallway meeting space.[8] With it came theMcCormick Theological Seminary, with which it had already been sharing facilities.[9]
CTU is staffed by religious and lay men and women. International students constitute nearly one-third of the student body.[10]
The main library of CTU is the Paul Bechtold Library, named after CTU's founding president.[11] Distinctive collections in the library include Catholic religious communities, dialogue across ecumenical and inter-religious lines, and pastoral theology.[12]
Catholic Theological Union building in Hyde Park, with sign indicating that Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and McCormick Theological Seminary share space with it
