I asked a distinguished international group of Catholic scholars what would most help Catholic universities stay Catholic and break new intellectual ground. Their reply was unanimous: found an independent research institute, locate it in the United States at a major secular research university, and form a lay board of trustees capable of funding, guiding, and defending it. This book explains why the Institute's leadership chose as its home the University of Southern California rather than Yale and Princeton, and why two Cardinals of the Catholic Church tried but failed to close it down. It tells this story in vivid detail, documents challenges, victories, and mistakes, and describes the richness and critical importance of the Catholic intellectual tradition as one of the most fundamental intellectual and religious resources for true distinctiveness that Catholic universities offer to a polarized and insecure world. The Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies is unique; there is nothing like it in the world.