The University of Notre Dame has come under criticism from Catholic Bishop Kevin Rhoades for hosting an event that promotes abortion, contradicting the university’s Catholic mission. Rhoades referred to the event, which was organized by the Notre Dame Gender Studies Program and featured abortion activist Ash Williams, as “propaganda” that causes scandal by promoting the opposite of justice, which is the killing of unborn babies through abortions.
“… this lecture is simply a conduit for activist propaganda that is not merely wrong, but squarely contrary to principles of basic human equality, justice, dignity and nonviolence that the Catholic Church, Notre Dame, and many others (including non-Catholics) have affirmed for millennia,” the bishop wrote.
According to the event advertisement, Williams is a Black trans abortion doula, public intellectual, and abolitionist community organizer who has been actively advocating for abortion access by funding abortions and training other people to become abortion doulas. An abortion doula is a non-medical position that primarily involves providing emotional support and encouragement to pregnant mothers during the abortion process, from driving them to their appointment to holding their hand and sitting with them afterward.
“The Gender Studies Program and the Reilly Center (and the other units on campus supporting them) are simply providing Williams — a person who literally facilitates abortions — a platform for unanswered pro-abortion activism,” he continued. “… It is clear from the past and planned events in this series that the organizers are not conducting a neutral inquiry or exploring the debates within this field.”
While Catholic schools should present students with different opinions, including those that contradict church teachings, Bishop Rhoades emphasized that they should not abandon those teachings in doing so. In the case of the reproductive justice event, Rhoades pointed out that the purpose was not to educate students about diverse views on abortion, but to encourage them to become abortion activists
[…] Catholic Bishop Slams Notre Dame for Hosting Pro-Abortion Event […]
I’m so glad that someone is finally calling ND out on this hypocrisy!!!! They’re not what they represent themselves to be at all!!! They do a lot of cover ups!!!!
As an ND alum, I written my school told them I will no longer donate to them. They have become a socilist supoorting, liberal and woke indoctrinating school. What genders are they studing?
What we have here is a failure to excommunicate!
Notre Dame is as Catholic as Biden which is Catholic in name only.
Notre Dame turned into an anti Catholic school.