The Center for Catholic Thought, Ethics, and Culture is an interdisciplinary academic institute that contributes to Sacred Heart University's mission of assisting in the development of people knowledgeable of self, rooted in faith, educated in mind, compassionate in heart, responsive to social and civic obligations, and able to respond to an ever-changing world.

The Center's specific contribution to this mission is threefold: to transmit and develop the Catholic intellectual tradition; to transmit and apply the Catholic social tradition; and to communicate in the academy and the local community the riches of Catholic arts, letters, criticism, and scholarship. The Center welcomes all faculty, students, and staff to contribute to these efforts, regardless of their religious affiliation.

The Center assists Sacred Heart faculty and students to understand, analyze, develop, and communicate the Catholic intellectual tradition through multiple disciplinary perspectives. The Center considers this intellectual tradition as “Catholic” in two senses: as the theological, philosophical, historical, literary, and artistic expressions of the Roman and Eastern Catholic religious heritage, and as the focus of an intellectual quest that catholic, that is, universal, in its influence on Western culture and global society.

The Center promotes the study of the Catholic social tradition and trains students to be future leaders who will apply the ethical wisdom of that tradition to their society and world. The Center promotes critical study of this social tradition in the context of experiential learning.

The Center encourages Sacred Heart faculty and other academic, religious, and public figures to engage the Catholic intellectual and social traditions and to communicate their ideas to the wider public. By organizing lectures and other events, the Center promotes basic understanding of the Catholic intellectual and social traditions among the Sacred Heart community and local public. The Center also provides a forum for academic debates about issues within Catholicism and social controversies that bear on Catholicism. The Center also aims to encourage the faculty's interest in researching the Catholic intellectual tradition, using the methods of their disciplines.