An all-women’s Catholic college that was recently the center of controversy for attempting to admit male students who identify as female is facing a fresh round of concern over its commitment to Catholic teaching.

This time, St. Mary’s College in northern Indiana is being criticized by alumnae and current students for its plan to give a platform to a former Irish politician who is now devoted to overturning Church teaching as this spring’s commencement speaker.

Mary McAleese, who served as president of Ireland from 1997 to 2011, is set to address the graduating class of the small liberal arts school, which is located across the street from the University of Notre Dame. 

A self-professed practicing Catholic, the 73-year-old Irishwoman has been a long-standing advocate for access to abortion and so-called same-sex “marriage.” 

And since leaving politics, McAleese has devoted herself to pushing for radical changes in the Catholic Church, including the attempted sacramental ordination of women and the end of infant baptism.

Given her defiance of Church teaching, one group of St. Mary’s community members thinks McAleese is the wrong model of Catholic womanhood for the college to promote.

“It sends a scandalous message to students that one can actively oppose Church teachings while still being celebrated by a Catholic institution,” said the Loretto Trust in a March 15 statement, describing the selection of McAleese as “an unambiguous betrayal” of St. Mary’s Catholic identity.

The decision to honor McAleese is also being protested by Belles for Life, the college’s pro-life student group, who said in a March 14 letter that her selection sends “a dangerous message that departing from Church doctrine and denying others the right to life is empowering.”

St. Mary’s administrators did not respond to the Register’s request for comment. But in a statement announcing McAleese’s selection, the Catholic college’s president seemed to suggest that the Irish politician’s advocacy related to abortion and the attempted ordination of women were part of the reason she was selected.

“[McAleese] has continued to build bridges as an advocate for justice, particularly around issues important to women,” said Katie Conboy in comments reported by the campus newspaper. 

The bishops of the United States have long instructed Catholic colleges and universities to “not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”

Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the ordinary of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, where St. Mary’s College is located, did not respond to a request for comment.

The news of McAleese came on the heels of nearby Notre Dame's decision not to extend an invitation to the office of the president of the United States,  break from tradition in the college's recent past. 

St. Mary’s Trajectory

St. Mary’s selection of McAleese is the latest in a long line of decisions that seem to cut against the Catholic commitments of the institution, which was founded in 1844 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross.

Most recently, the college faced significant backlash from parents, students and alumnae after plans to admit male students who identify as female were leaked to the press in November 2023.

Although Conboy and St. Mary’s administrators reversed course, the development led to lasting damage, including boycotts of its annual fundraising drive and alumnae discouraging prospective college students from attending.

“Trust has been broken,” Priscilla Pilon, a 1986 graduate who also served on St. Mary’s alumnae board from 2008 to 2015, told the Register at the time.

The debacle also brought Conboy’s record under greater scrutiny. Since becoming president of St. Mary’s in 2020, she has overseen the opening of a campus LGBTQ+ Center, tapped a controversial (and now former) Franciscan friar who promotes gender ideology to lead St. Mary’s spirituality center, and aggressively pursued the implementation of DEI policies.

Meanwhile, students and alumnae have complained that Conboy has failed to defend the Church’s teaching against abortion and has not provided adequate support to pro-life students.

“Supposedly, a diversity of ideas are welcome, but why does this Catholic institution actively promote ideas and campus events that attack the very teachings of Catholicism?” wrote Ashley Kraker in an April 2023 letter that was signed by 190 other St. Mary’s students and alumnae.

Fallout from St Mary’s attempted “trans” policy, however, directly led to the creation of the Loretto Trust. The group has 230 subscribers to its email list (a related Facebook group has more than 1,000), and is dedicated to “preserving St. Mary’s Catholic identity.”

McAleese’s Record

For the Loretto Trust, that includes protesting McAleese’s selection as commencement speaker.

In 1975, as a professor of criminal law, McAleese said that the failure to provide abortion was “a human-rights issue.” Despite claiming to be pro-life, she said in 2018 that she voted to strike down Ireland’s constitutional abortion ban in a referendum with a “heart and a half,” adding that the Catholic Church had “really not come to terms with the clash between people’s human rights and canon law.”

Since leaving politics, McAleese earned a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian University in Rome, part of her quest to use “whatever time is left to me” to challenge Church teaching related to sexuality and women.

She has previously described infant baptism as an act of coercion and called the World Meeting of Families, which was hosted in Dublin in 2018, “a right-wing rally.” 

McAleese has also used Catholic Church’s recent focus on “synodality” to advocate for the democratization of the Church and has advanced the view that Catholic teaching should be judged by how well it adheres to a secular conception of human rights. 

Members of the Belles for Life and Loretto Trust see the importance of highlighting commendable Catholic women for graduating students at St. Mary’s College. But they don’t think McAleese fits the bill.

“Commencement speakers should be role models,” said the Belles for Life in their letter, “not advocates for abandoning Catholic principles.”