The appointment of a pro-abortion professor to lead an Asian studies institute on campus is “tragic,” according to winners of the University of Notre Dame’s pro-life award.
Yesterday, a group of Evangelium Vitae winners wrote to Notre Dame’s president, Fr. Robert Dowd. All the authors had previously been recognized by the Catholic university for their commitment to the sanctity of human life.
They expressed their “sadness” at the appointment of Professor Susan Ostermann to lead the Liu Institute. Ostermann is ardently pro-abortion, even accusing pro-lifers of being racist. She also said laws prohibiting the intentional destruction of innocent human babies is itself a form of “violence.”
The award winners said they had all suffered adversity “due to our countercultural insistence upon the value of every human life at every stage.”
“But we suffered them gladly (or sometimes even hardly noticed them!) because our Catholic community, our Catholic faith, accompanied us, shielded us and wielded with intellectual vigor and even joy its 2,000 years of faith and reason in defense of life,” they wrote in the campus newspaper, The Observer.
However, “nothing stings more than betrayal by one’s community.”
The winners urged Fr. Dowd to “ally” with them “in defense of these defenseless human beings.”
The signers were Helen M. Alvaré, Richard Doerflinger, Mother Agnes Donovan, Mary Ann Glendon, Phyllis Lauinger, Anthony Lauinger, William Thorn, and Mary Louise Solomon.
Solomon is the wife of the late David Solomon, who founded the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She is supposed to accept this year’s Evangelium Vitae award on behalf of her husband.
While not a signer on this letter, 2023 winner Professor Robert George also added his denouncement in a comment to the National Catholic Register.
“Why such a person would want to be at a Catholic university puzzles me, I must admit,” the Princeton scholar said. “But it makes no sense to me that such a person would be given a post, especially a leadership position, at such a university.”
Criticism also continues to grow from Catholic bishops.
At least ten prelates so far have endorsed the call by Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the leader of the diocese of Fort-Wayne South Bend, asking Notre Dame to retract the appointment, according to the National Catholic Register.
