Like many, I have watched the chaos unfold after the University of Notre Dame appointed pro-abortion Susan Ostermann as the new director of the university’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. Her appointment takes effect this summer, but she has taught at the university for years.
I have read Ostermann’s articles and am both saddened and disgusted by her views and her lack of empathy for the preborn baby, whom she is more than willing to allow to be dismembered and tossed in the trash.
Here is just a smattering of her lies and pro-abortion rhetoric. In a 2022 Chicago Tribune article, she called pregnancy resource centers “anti-abortion rights propaganda sites.” That same year, she coauthored an article that said that “abortion access is freedom-enhancing, in the truest sense of the word.”
Ironically, that same article also states:
While pregnancy can be a joyous and miraculous event for those who freely choose it, forced pregnancy and childbirth is violence. It is sexual abuse. It is trauma. There exists no other comparable situation in which a human being (who is not incarcerated) is forced to undergo a potentially traumatic and even deadly medical event against their will.
Let’s read that again, but this time with our thinking caps on: “There exists no other comparable situation in which a human being . . . is forced to undergo a potentially traumatic and even deadly medical event against their will.”
What exactly does she think an abortion is? Abortion is the deadliest medical event out there. Death is its intention!
Her shortsightedness is second only to the university’s. And I don’t say that lightly or without love. I actually say it with a broken heart, as I am a Notre Dame graduate, and I have loved Our Lady’s university since I was little. I love it because it was and forever will be a part of me and a part of my family. My great-uncle was a Notre Dame graduate and a Holy Cross priest who taught there and served as provost. A beloved cousin also went there. And my father is a proud grad. So the day I received my acceptance letter was one of the happiest of our collective lives.
Over the years, I have been dismayed by some of the diversions the university has taken from its Catholic identity, but this one has me the angriest. How can a university dedicated to our Blessed Mother—a single mother in an unplanned pregnancy—hire a woman who so vehemently advocates for the death of a tiny preborn baby?
It’s contrary to everything the university should stand for. But what’s even sadder is the fact that this is now just beginning to boil over. This outrage should have happened when Ostermann was first hired years ago. She has taught at the university since 2017, so we should not kid ourselves that this woman hasn’t spewed her hostility and lies to vulnerable young people in the classroom. How many young women have been influenced by her rhetoric? We will never know, but it’s tragic to think about the effect she has likely had on students.
I understand that not all faculty are or have to be Catholic, but people in leadership positions at ND—and that includes faculty teaching positions—should uphold the truths and teachings of the Catholic Church. The Church abhors the violence of abortion and teaches so in the Catechism: “Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. . . . Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.”
It seems that leadership at ND is relegating the Catechism to the shelf in the back of the closet, hoping people forget that it is our duty and our responsibility to protect the vulnerable from creation until death.
If we don’t want pro-life values to die out with us someday, our society must collectively and courageously teach these values. That means at home, in schools, in churches, in CCE programs, and from the pulpit. And that means that Catholic schools and universities must hire faculty who believe what the Church teaches and who can properly explain the dignity of every human being to our children so they can go out and do the same.
But we must also teach the truth about what abortion really does to a tiny human being, for every abortion takes the life of a defenseless baby. The stark reality is that in the smallest embryonic stage, a child’s life can now be taken by a pill. As she grows older, she can be ripped apart in a surgical abortion. Yes, her arms and legs are literally ripped from her torso, and then her head is crushed so it can be more easily removed. Then the baby must be put together like a jigsaw puzzle to make sure the abortionist scraped out every piece.
It’s sickening and inhumane. Yet this is what Ostermann passionately advocates for.
Thankfully, we do see a flicker of moral courage at the university, and we pray that it’s a trend that will continue as students and faculty find their voices. In addition to the people who have stepped down from roles within the Asian institute because they do not want to work under Ostermann, a young woman named Lucy Spence, a junior at Notre Dame, has beautifully and bravely articulated her thoughts and gives us hope for the future. In an op-ed entitled “Ostermann’s Appointment Is an Insult to ND Women,” she wrote, “Women are tired of being told that their strength lies in the rejection of love. No, unplanned pregnancies do not ‘destroy lives.’ No, a child born of rape is not a ‘form of violence.’ In its appointment and promotion of Ostermann, Notre Dame has become complicit in feeding that great lie to its female students.”
Spence has it exactly right. By hiring professors who are so outspoken about abortion “rights,” the University of Notre Dame is complicit in the corruption of young minds who are being taught that the Catholic Church’s teachings don’t matter.
I pray that the university’s leaders come to understand the value of every person—born and preborn. And I pray that they find the courage to stand up for every vulnerable person by hiring strong and moral faculty members. Notre Dame must work toward finding better moral leadership so that it can create better leaders in its students. Otherwise, there’s no point in calling itself Catholic.
This article first appeared in LifeSiteNews at lifesitenews.com/blogs/notre-dame-shouldnt-bother-calling-itself-catholic-if-it-keeps-promoting-pro-abortion-faculty/?utm_source=most_recent&utm_campaign=catholic.
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