Heythrop: the eleventh hour
We write as Catholic university teachers of theology, from a wide range of institutions, who have all served as President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, to express our great concern at reports of the breakdown of negotiations for the proposed alignment of Heythrop College and the University of Roehampton.

Compared with its European neighbours, the English Catholic Church has long suffered from a lack of institutional investment in the study and teaching of theology at tertiary level. Heythrop has been one of the very few British Catholic institutions in which academic theology and philosophy are taught and studied at the very highest level, combining academic excellence with a remarkable range of programmes.

At a time of radical flux in our society’s cohesion and self-understanding, Heythrop’s practice of theology and philosophy as a Catholic institution awarding pontifical qualifications alongside secular degrees, and operating within a public space, is not only a priceless resource for the Catholic community, but a vital service to society at large. The disappearance of Heythrop would not only deprive Catholics of an irreplaceable educational resource, but would send a deeply negative signal about the Church’s withdrawal from intellectual engagement in conversations about meaning and value conducted in the public sphere of the wider academy.