Notre Dame: Catholic No More?
The University of Notre Dame came under fire over the course of the past month for promoting an associate professor known nationally for her radical abortion activism, which, needless to say, is in direct conflict with one of the most crucial, essential, and fundamental moral doctrines of the Catholic Church. The professor-cum-abortion activist, Susan Ostermann, will no longer be accepting the promotion to lead the university’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, but the decision was hers.
The question now is: Why didn’t the administrators and caretakers of Notre Dame, which aims to be the nation’s premier Catholic center of higher learning, rescind Ostermann’s promotion? Better yet, why did they offer the abortion activist a prestigious promotion to begin with?
As is fairly well-established at this point, the Catholic Church condemns abortion in no uncertain terms. Abortion is the murder of unborn children, the Church teaches. The Catechism of the Catholic Church demands that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
Ostermann does not agree. No, the associate professor insists that abortion does not “kill babies. Almost 90 percent of abortions occur during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy when there are no babies or fetuses.” Such an opinion is contradicted not just by modern science and medicine but by 2,000 years of Catholic moral doctrine.
Shame upon Notre Dame’s leadership for not rescinding Ostermann’s appointment.
Notre Dame was established by Fr. Edward Sorin of the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1842, on land purchased by Stephen Badin, the first priest ordained in the U.S. Despite its deep Catholic roots, the university’s commitment to a Catholic identity has seemingly waned in recent years. In 2009, Notre Dame honored non-Catholic, pro-abortion, and crypto-Marxist then-president Barack Obama as a commencement speaker. Since then, Notre Dame has repeatedly taken actions calling into question its supposed Catholic identity.
In 2012, the university officially established an LGBT student organization, despite the Church’s teachings on homosexual acts and relationships, followed by extending benefits to same-sex couples in 2014. Notre Dame also awarded then-vice president Joe Biden its prestigious Laetare Medal, despite Biden’s longstanding support for the wanton slaughter of the unborn. Biden was also invited to Notre Dame as a commencement speaker in 2021. Similarly, in 2020, the university awarded pro-abortion politician Pete Buttigieg, who is also involved in a same-sex relationship, with a faculty position. Notre Dame has continued trending leftward over the past several years in particular, permitting professors like Ostermann and Tamara Kay to vocally promote abortion on-campus and in national publications, hosting pro-abortion panels and programs, and inviting LGBT and abortion activists to teach or speak at the university.
Ostermann’s appointment last month to head the Liu Institute was not entirely surprising — disappointing and angering, but not quite surprising, given Notre Dame’s steady drift further and further from Catholic principles over the last two decades. What is surprising is that Ostermann herself chose not to accept the promotion.
A very public campaign — led by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, and joined by Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota; Bishop Donald Hying of the Diocese of Masion, Wisconsin; Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Archdiocese of San Francisco; Bishop James Wall of the Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico; Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska; Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin; Bishop Michael Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas; Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, who has denied Holy Communion to pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.); and Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York, who played a key role in the election of Pope Leo XIV, in addition to numerous lay Catholics — called on the university to rescind Ostermann’s appointment.
Yet even in the face of such pressure, Notre Dame officials continued to support Ostermann. It is astounding that the woman who vocally endorses the butchering and poisoning of unborn children in their mother’s wombs had perhaps a better grasp of how drastically her views conflicted with the teachings of the Catholic Church than the administrators of a nominally Catholic university named after the Blessed Virgin Mary and striving for the distinction of America’s finest Catholic institute of higher education. Shame upon Notre Dame’s leadership for not rescinding Ostermann’s appointment. While the school still attracts many faithful Catholic students, as it has done for nearly two centuries, its present leadership can claim to be Catholic in name only.
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