Several recipients of the University of Notre Dame’s Evangelium Vitae Award, which celebrates those committed to pro-life values, penned a Feb. 16 letter to the school’s president lamenting the decision to appoint a pro-abortion professor to lead one of its institutes.
“Numerous justified reactions to the tragic appointment of Professor Susan Ostermann have already reached your desk: shock, scandal, disbelief and outrage among them. We would like to add one more: profound sadness,” the signatories wrote in the open letter addressing Father Robert Dowd.
Published by Notre Dame independent newspaper The Observer, the signatories note that they write “as recipients of Notre Dame’s Evangelium Vitae award, given by the university in recognition of our and the University’s shared commitment to the defense of human life from conception to natural death.”
Ostermann was appointed to lead the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies in January and is set to assume the role in July, as Zeale News previously reported.
The award recipients described the appointment as a betrayal.
“Every recipient of this award has, at some point in their work on behalf of life, suffered the ‘slings and arrows’ of the powers that be due to our countercultural insistence upon the value of every human life at every stage,” they wrote. “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 urged the president to stand with them in defending the most vulnerable.
“Nothing stings more than betrayal by one’s community — especially by an institution with such an admirable and urgently needed mission,” they concluded. “Please ally with us as, together, we make a brave stand for the defense of these defenseless human beings, against the ‘wisdom of the world’ (1 Cor 1:27).”
The signatories are Helen Alvaré, a professor of law at George Mason University and member of the Holy See Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life; Mary Louise Solomon, “representing David Solomon, post-mortem recipient (2026) and founder of de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture,” according to the letter; Richard Doerflinger, an adjunct fellow at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life; Mother Agnes Donovan, founding superior general of the Sisters of Life; Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University professor emerita of law; Phyllis Lauinger, M.D., who is a mother of eight Notre Dame alumni; Anthony Lauinger, who is a father of eight Notre Dame alumni and vice president of National Right to Life; and William Thorn, Marquette University professor emeritus of journalism.
The signatories join many who have spoken out since the appointment was announced. Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, the diocese where Notre Dame is located, denounced the appointment and urged for the school to resolve the situation. Several bishops and archbishops across the U.S. — including the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — have since expressed support of Bishop Rhoades in his call.
“This appointment understandably creates confusion in the public mind as to Notre Dame’s fidelity to its Catholic mission. Many faculty, students, alumni, and benefactors of Notre Dame have reached out to me to express their shock, sadness, confusion, and disappointment,” Bishop Rhoades stated Feb. 11. “I share their feelings as well as their love for Notre Dame.”
He called on the faithful to ask Our Lady of Lourdes for her intercession “for the Notre Dame community and its leaders during these days. I invite you to say a prayer or light a candle at her grotto, invoking her prayers that Notre Dame will always stand firm in her commitment to the Gospel of her Son, the Gospel of Life.”