This week marks Notre Dame’s inauguration of its 18th president, Fr. Robert Dowd, CSC.
Dowd is taking the helm at a school that has, over decades, grown to become a preeminent research university, with strong finances, robust academics, and an impressive sports program — it is an institution widely considered synonymous with American Catholicism.
But beneath the prestige, Notre Dame has also drawn criticism for a number of decisions in recent years that many say amount to a compromise of its Catholic identity and values.
Will Fr. Dowd continue his predecessor’s legacy of growing the university’s global reputation and emphasizing dialogue, even if the cost is controversy and questions over Catholic identity? Or is his inauguration the start of a new chapter for the Fighting Irish?
Practically, the new president’s priorities remain to be revealed. But the list of featured speakers at his inauguration events suggest Dowd may not be keen on making changes to the status quo.
Often recognized as one of the flagship Catholic universities in the United States, Notre Dame is known for its prestigious academics and its iconic football team.
However, the university has also been embroiled in significant controversy over the years, prompting questions of fidelity to its Catholic identity.
At a 1967 conference in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, then university president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh hosted a gathering of Catholic educators to discuss the future of Catholic university education in America.
The result was what became known as the Land O’Lakes Statement, which asserted that Catholic universities, in order to fulfill their purpose, must have complete academic freedom and expression, unfettered by the limits of Church teaching or the exercise of ecclesiastical authority.
The document has been cited in the subsequent decades as a kind of Magna Carta for dissenting faculty on Catholic campuses, advancing the claim that Catholic schools can and should provide a home for ideas and arguments outside of and even against the Church’s teaching.
Notre Dame has faced controversy more recently as well.
In 2016, it awarded then-Vice President Joe Biden the Laetare Medal which the school calls the “most prestigious award given to American Catholics.”
The decision drew criticism from pro-life advocates who argued that Biden’s adamant support of legal abortion should disqualify him from the honor.
In 2018, the school drew fire for announcing that it would cover birth control in its insurance plan, after having previously joined a lawsuit against the HHS contraception mandate requiring just such an inclusion. Following months of controversy, it eventually modified the policy, announcing that it would still cover some contraceptives, but would not cover those that might cause abortions.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, a trio of Notre Dame professors penned an article in the LA Times arguing that abortion should be “widely available to all.”
Two of those three professors wrote a piece in the Chicago Tribune as well, arguing that abortions before 10 weeks of pregnancy do not kill a baby.
Then-president Fr. John Jenkins responded in another letter to the Chicago Tribune, where he said the professors were “free to express their opinions,” but that their essay “does not reflect the views and values of the University of Notre Dame.”
Earlier this year, Notre Dame announced the creation of a new center for the study of ethics, named for and led by Jenkins.
Jenkins, who has been at the helm of university for nearly 20 years, said he hoped the new ethics center will “help give Notre Dame a distinctively Catholic voice on the great moral debates of the day.”
But some community and faculty members objected that the university already houses the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, and it seemed as though the new ethics center was both competing with and downplaying the existing institution.
Jenkins’ retirement left some members of the community wondering if there might be an opening for change at the university, and an opportunity to refocus on its commitment to Catholic identity and teaching.
Incoming president Fr. Robert Dowd is a graduate of Notre Dame himself. He has long been a political science professor at the university, and has also served as a trustee and vice president. He was until recenly the religious superior of the Holy Cross community at Notre Dame.
Dowd told the university magazine that his priorities as he assumes the new role include a focus on bolstering the school’s status as a Catholic research university, increasing student body diversity, and enhancing accessibility and affordability.
He did not indicate whether he considers Catholic identity an issue that requires a greater focus – or a shift in focus – from the previous administration.
But keen observers may notice that one of the featured guests at the incoming president’s inaugural speaker series this week is Sanda Ojiambo, executive director of the United Nations Global Compact.
Ojiambo’s background includes five years working at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a resume feature that may raise eyebrows among those concerned that the university has a tendency to value global prestige at the expense of orthodoxy.
Also among the featured speakers was David Rockefeller Jr., former chair of the Rockefeller Foundation, a significant funder of legal abortion initiatives.
Of course, the extent of Dowd’s involvement in selecting speakers for the inauguration series is not clear, though the university has said that he personally chose the theme for the event: “What do we owe each other?”
Still, if Dowd were interested in making a clear statement on the prioritization of Catholic identity at the university, one way to do so would be to insist that the featured speakers not have a history of working at an organization as antithetical to the Catholic Church as Planned Parenthood.
The balance of engaging with the secular world and publicly witnessing to the Church’s teachings – even those that are unpopular in the world – can be tricky.
And it is too early to say what that balance will look like under the leadership of Dowd.
But the incoming president has passed up what was perhaps his first possible opportunity to show that he wants to steer the ship of Notre Dame in a new direction.
Those hoping for significant changes at Notre Dame probably shouldn’t be holding their breath.
