By Aicha Falcon
Writing on belonging in 2019, political science professors Amber Curtis and Laura Olson found that the human need to belong is a primal motivation that transcends time and place.
Yet modern universities undermine this basic need, having institutionalised secularisation in an effort to mask their low tolerance for what are considered “outdated” religious ideologies. As a result, Catholic international students like me can feel lacking in community and compelled to suppress the very parts of us that once defined us.
It’s easy to be yourself in a community that shares your values, but here at my university, surrounded by peers whose beliefs differ from or even strongly contradict mine, I often hide my faith behind a facade I perceive others will more easily accept.
I consider my faith a large part of me, yet I hide it, scared of what they’ll think, say or do.
Uncertainty-Identity Theory, according to social psychologist Professor Michael Hogg and colleagues, explains that people join and cling to groups to reduce anxiety about who they are and how they should behave.
Another theory on social identity explains that we categorise ourselves and others into in-groups and out-groups. These theories come to life in everyday campus interactions.
Here, where relativism and secular norms are prized, a Catholic student’s prototype—clear moral guidelines, daily prayer, communal worship—is rendered invisible.
Deprived of that blueprint, I oscillate between doubt (“Am I still me?”) and over-conformity (“I must laugh at their jokes”), each choice deepening my sense of uncertainty rather than alleviating it. I fear becoming someone foreign to myself and this uncertainty drives identity suppression.
The social identity theory of Henri Tajfel and John Turner springs to life on campus where I suppress every public sign of faith— hiding rosaries, avoiding any mention of prayer— I conform to the secular ingroup’s prototype to sidestep negative comparison and exclusion. Yet this self-censorship costs me dearly; it severs the link between who I am and how I present myself, leaving me fragmented and isolated.
I have forced myself to chuckle at conversations laced with sexual innuendo— behaviour that contradicts my beliefs— just to belong.
I’ve avoided wearing any visible symbol of my faith, even though it is everything I’ve ever known. And I’ve stayed mute when friends derided religious viewpoints on social media, too afraid to risk misunderstanding or ridicule.
Each act of self-silencing reinforces my out-group status, and each hidden prayer intensifies my sense of isolation.
As an international student, leaving everything you’ve ever known is already a challenging experience. It’s not just a one-time event; it requires you to learn to change or adapt your way of thinking and being.
You encounter new environments, unspoken rules, different transportation methods, and new ways of buying groceries. The twin forces of uncertainty and suppression feed on each other.
Fortunately I found clarity on joining my university’s Catholic society, a student group where prayer, service-orientation and the teachings of Jesus are celebrated and not shunned. Week by week, uncertainty is thawed away as shared rituals and discussion furnish guidance on faith and ethics. Identity is affirmed and I can grow in knowledge and faith without fear.
Community forms naturally as students create a safe space, ensuring no one feels left out. The Catholic society has been my corrective to pressured conformity. Instead of hiding, I now practise my faith with confidence, supported by peers in deepening our relationship with Jesus and helping each other on our journey to heaven.
Some will argue that faith-based societies on campus simply create division and exclusivity. Critics could argue that by reinforcing religious individuals with groups such as Catholic societies may build walls rather than bridges and that universities should favour open, secular spaces where all students mix freely.
But Catholic teaching is fundamentally about solidarity, service and love, not segregation. My Catholic society runs coffee stalls and social events to encourage community—precisely the kind of equal-status intergroup contact shown to reduce prejudice by researchers Pettigrew and Tropp. Rather than isolating believers—something modern society has adopted—my Catholic society empowers its members to step confidently into the broader campus community, living out a faith that invites genuine friendships and shared purpose.
Universities must recognise that faith-based groups are not fringe clubs but vital communities that reduce student uncertainty and guard against explicit and implicit religious identity suppression. Allocating funding, event space, and official support to Catholic societies and other faith societies ensures that no student must choose between authenticity and acceptance.
In reclaiming our Catholic identity together, we not only heal our anxieties, but enrich the moral and cultural fabric of the entire campus. When faith is spoken, practised and shared openly, uncertainty gives way to purpose, suppression yields to fellowship, and every student, regardless of belief, benefits from a community that stands for compassion, human dignity and the common good.