Notre Dame is in the news, and not for getting gypped out of the College Football playoffs. Rather, it is for appointing an outspoken advocate for abortion and fierce critic of the pro-life cause to a major position in the university. The facts are both simple and rightfully shocking, even if hardly surprising to those I might call “Ex Corde realists.” 

Let me explain. On January 8 of the new year, Notre Dame, the premier Catholic university in the United States, appointed Dr. Susan Ostermann, associate professor of global affairs at the Keough School of Global Affairs, as director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, effective July 1, 2026. Ostermann is an active scholar and involved in a number of laudable projects around the world, particularly in Asia. With the general public, however, she is most known for the stridency of her support of the abortion license, which she claims is “freedom-enhancing, in the truest sense of the word” and “consistent with integral human development that emphasizes social justice and human dignity.” Those who fight for the legal protection of the unborn, in contrast, she judges to be motivated by “white supremacy” and “racism.” Their pregnancy centers are “anti-abortion rights propaganda sites” designed “to operate and provide false information to women who are lured to them believing they will receive legitimate medical care.” If that is not enough, the incoming director collaborates with the Population Council, a well-funded organization that works with government and non-governmental agencies to control human reproduction. 

Thankfully, some good-hearted Catholics at what some call “Our Lady’s University” have raised their voice in protest.

If one is looking for reasons to feel good about the future of the American Catholic Church, read the letter, published in the student newspaper, from the Notre Dame Right to Life Executive Board. They respectfully ask the university to rescind the appointment due to Ostermann’s advocacy of abortion, an act the Church considers intrinsically evil. They express skepticism with her statement that she respects “Notre Dame’s institutional position on the sanctity of life at every stage” by making the obvious point that “she has spent her career advocating for and supporting organizations that directly contradict this statement.” They point out that the Population Council, “an organization that collaborated with the Chinese government to promote abortion, contraception and the enforcement of the one-child policy, violates the dignity of human life.” On this point, the letter includes a quotation from Anna Kelly, who was adopted by Catholic parents from China and serves as president of Notre Dame Right to Life: 

Is there a leader of a self-described Catholic school who would not burst with pride in having such a student? More importantly, is there one so obtuse not to hear in her words a prophetic voice of warning?  Time will tell.

In addition to the students, some professors have spoken out. The most prominent is the wonderful Fr. Wilson (Bill) Miscamble, C.S.C. Anyone familiar with the uphill struggle to keep Notre Dame institutionally Catholic will be familiar with his work. A happy warrior if ever there was, Father Miscamble has dedicated a good deal of his professional life calling upon Notre Dame’s leadership—most often fellow members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross—not to sacrifice the cause of Catholic higher education for the passing glories of worldly prestige. 

A historian of post-World War II American foreign policy by trade, his biography of Notre Dame’s most famous president, Fr. Ted Hesburgh, C.S.C., is both laudatory of Hesburgh’s obvious accomplishments for the school and critical of those moments he became too desirous of the approval of secular elites. Over the years, Fr. Bill has written pieces for First Things that provide good background to this seemingly inexplicable decision. I recommend in particular an essay he wrote on the university’s relationship to Mayor Pete Buttigieg. On the Ostermann controversy, one can watch him on Raymond Arroyo’s Prayerful Posse, thereby getting a sense of the full Fr. Bill experience, as well as read his recent “A Crisis of Catholic Fidelity at Notre Dame.”

I did not attend Notre Dame, nor have I visited the campus more than a few times. And, given that Catholic identity abides within the inner dynamics of a school, an outsider like me would be a fool to hurl declarations. I do know, however, that it is a very special place. Graduates or, as they call themselves, “Domers” tend to be fiercely loyal to their alma mater, even cultish in their devotion. They can, of course, be critical of this or that decision—bestowing an honorary degree on President Barack Obama in 2009 and the Laetare medal for Catholics “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity” to President Joe Biden in 2016 spring to mind. 

Yet, for all their frustration with college leadership, they are quick to point out all the good things that are happening on campus. They are right to do so. Notre Dame has a vibrantly Catholic student life (alongside the party culture fostered by nearly all institutions of higher learning), a robust theology department, and a good number of superstar Catholic academics scattered among its many schools, institutes, and other genera of academic existence. I am told that during an average week on campus, more than 158 Masses are celebrated, there are fifty or so hours of Eucharistic adoration, and confession is made available for nineteen hours. Indeed, amid the Ostermann controversy, a story appeared of an ice chapel built by students to host an outdoor Mass for over two thousand congregants. More importantly, the National Catholic Register reports that their campus ministry has a record number of students going through the OCIA to become Catholic. A single testimony from Alex Huang, born in China to non-religious parents, speaks volumes of what Notre Dame is doing right:

In other words, Catholic Domers are rightly proud of not only the strong Catholic culture that pervades the school but the many excellent Catholic scholars who teach and work there. There is even an alternative student newspaper run by Catholic students named the Irish Rover and a trust dedicated to “protecting Notre Dame’s Catholic Identity.” No other school has anything like that.

So, what’s the matter with Notre Dame? Failed leadership. It is the same thing that explains the general decline of Catholic higher education in the United States since the Second Vatican Council. The simple truth is that, beginning in the late 1960s, the vast majority of those entrusted with the Church’s institutions of higher learning in the United States started to desire something more than providing Catholic education to their students. The “something more” could be wanting acceptance by the wider secular academy, getting along with misaligned faculty, or just staying in business. 

Ensuring Catholic identity through the hiring of Catholic professors and the institution of policies regulating student life became increasingly difficult, and those in charge, with few exceptions, refused to do it. By 1990, when Saint John Paul II issued his Apostle Constitution on Catholic universities, Ex corde Ecclesiae, the fundamentals were too set to be much altered. I dedicated a long essay to this story for First Things in 2023. The basic idea is that, when it comes to colleges and universities, everything depends on the will and strength of those in charge. It is no more complicated than that.

Thus, I consider it both unjust and unproductive to place the blame for Notre Dame’s latest scandal on Ostermann.