It’s a full house at the USC Caruso Catholic Center’s Sunday night mass, with over a hundred students attending service in the university’s spotless new church. After mass there’s a gathering; tonight, it’s Greek Night. But instead of togas, beer kegs and blasting music, this party is a low-key mixer with snacks from Daphne’s Greek Café and family-friendly conversations about ministry projects.

Greek life clearly has a different meaning here.

As Catholic youths between the ages of 18 and 24 make up thirty percent of those leaving the Catholic Church, these faithful USC students represent the group holding down the fort of a Church in decline. But with the spirituality of such students in the delicate position between safe, old habits and a brave new life, the social life implicit in sororities and fraternities have turned out to be a double-edged sword.

Some Catholic universities such as the University of Notre Dame and Santa Clara University have banned the Greek system on campus, but others like the Jesuit Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles support a thriving community of sororities and fraternities that promote a lifestyle quite different from stereotypes of ‘Animal House.’

“We have 17 Greek chapters on campus,” said Daniel Faill, associate director of student leadership and development at LMU. “As a Jesuit school we believe in the founding principles of fraternities and sororities of being with others, philanthropy and finding yourself.”

But beyond the shelter of a Catholic campus, sororities and fraternities can be a much more threatening influence to young students attempting to stay on a path of traditional morality. The hazing rituals, drinking expectations and promiscuous sexual behavior inherent in living on any given Frat Row seem like a tough challenge to Catholic life, but according to 22-year-old USC student and Gamma Phi Beta member Victoria Alonso, it’s not hard to put the founding principles of the Greek system first. 

“The idea of a sorority is a community of women that comes together based on certain values. That’s kind of the heart of it,” said Alonso, also the peer ministry president at the Caruso Catholic Center. “I came from an all-girls Catholic high school, so especially as a freshman in a big school I wanted that sense of community.”

Community and philanthropy, the oft-overlooked purposes of fraternities and sororities, helped Lawrence Sayer open his eyes to a future in the priesthood. A former Kappa Sigma member at the University of Oregon, Father Sayer is now the pastor at Our Savior Parish of the USC Catholic Center.

“If you had told me that I was going to be a priest or told my fraternity brothers that I was going to be a priest, we all would have laughed,” Sayer said. “At the time I was happy to be Catholic, but I was never practicing. It was in the back of my head. But when you’re in college I was more interested in getting ahead and the beer and the women and having fun and stuff like that.”

But by moving ahead as the director of his house’s philanthropic services and by studying the virtues that exemplifying the ‘Kappa Sig man,’ Sayer saw the light in a life of service.

“In Greek Life, seeds are planted. If you really look at what we’re being taught in the rituals of the fraternity, if you see that important things are mentioned: being a man of integrity, being a person who is an intelligent man, one who really works for what’s right,” Sayer said. “So bottom line is its instilling virtues.”

Living up to those virtues is a more complicated task, but one that boils down essentially to choosing the right house and staying focused.

“There definitely are different influences that come with Greek life, especially in the social arena, but there’s definitely a way you can find balance and not engage in sinful behavior and still be a very participative member of the sorority,” Alonso said. “I would say just go into the recruitment process with an open mind, and just try to find a house that really fits your personality.”

Facing the pressures of housemates toward such “sinful behavior”—just as premarital sex and alcohol abuse—can be a test of faith. But navigating the new social world of college outside the bubble of a Catholic community is also a chance for young Catholics to truly exercise and commit to their faith in a more personal way.

“If a person is honest in the sense of not giving up their Catholic values, if they look at the fact that most fraternities and sororities were started with Christian values…they’d see that actually they can promote they can promote their Catholic values,” Sayer said. “If in fact they don’t get caught up in the boozing and all the rest.”

Reach Contributor Shweta Saraswat here.