The Newman Association endeavors to bring the Catholic students of Smith College into closer contact and relationship with each other, to strengthen their own faith spiritually, culturally and intellectually, and to foster a better understanding of the Catholic faith at Smith.

As Catholic students of Smith, we are dedicated to honoring the individuality of every person, understanding and fulfilling our responsibility to the surrounding community, and deepening our faith through prayer and celebration. We strive for the fulfillment of God's love for all people of the world. We organize events, retreats, and service projects, and we meet regularly for discussion and spiritual enrichment.

"Grace is...simply the ultimate depth of everything the spiritual creature does when [she] realizes [her]self—when [she] laughs and cries, accepts responsibility, loves, lives and dies, stands up for truth, breaks out of preoccupation with self to help the neighbor, hopes against hope, cheerfully refuses to be embittered by the stupidity of daily life, keeps silent not so that evil festers in [her] heart but so that it dies there—when in a word, [wo]man lives as [she] would like to live, in opposition to [her] selfishness and to the despair that always assails [her]. This is where grace occurs, because all this leads [wo]man into the infinity and victory that is God."
—Karl Rahner, S.J. "How to Receive a Sacrament and Mean It." The Sacraments: Readings in Contemporary Sacramental Theology. Ed. Michael J. Taylor, S.J. New York: Society of St. Paul.