I think in withdrawals like this it's hard to say who decided. The admin could have suggested to her to withdraw so they didn't have to forcibly withdraw the promotion. It's cleaner for everyone
True and fair, but it doesn't sound like it's cleaner for those who opposed her promotion in the first place. Notre Dame needs to start being on the right side of these issues.
Thanks be to God. Hopefully this will help them think a little more closely about this next time, as they realize people DO pay attention and care about such things!
> Multiple sources close to the university’s senior administration also told The Pillar that the appointment — and reaction to it — had caught Notre Dame president Fr. Robert Dowd “completely by surprise” and that he had not been aware of Ostermann’s promotion or its likely significance to the university community and public image.
And this is why this entire story was so surpassingly important. These status-obsessed leaders of these universities *don't even care to check* if the woman they were appointing to a major leadership position would do something like call opposition to child murder "white supremacy". Now, oh boy, they are going to be aware. The faculty, too, are going to be aware, and this is going to be a nationwide thing. What does this mean? Opposition to the Church is going to be less bold and less influential. That's souls right there. That's the work of God our Lord saving souls.
It sounds from his statement that he's not saying he wasn't aware of her views specifically; rather that he wasn't aware of her promotion in the first place. Which TBH for a large university does not seem that unusual to me - even if the president technically signs off, this appointment doesn't seem like something he would have been very personally involved in - like I wouldn't expect him to eg. know which other candidates were considered or what the decision criteria were. (Which of course, naturally leads to a question about the dean + departmental level leadership that would have been directly involved).
This is a very common bureaucratic sleight of hand that ensures nobody important faces institutional accountability when things like this happen. Apologies, because this is going to be a long comment, but it's very important.
First off, Fr. Dowd is the president. When you delegate authority, you are responsible for the decisions of your subordinates, so he is at least partially responsible for this decision, even if he wasn't aware of it.
Even further, though, when you think seriously about the claim that Fr. Dowd "wasn't aware," you run into an awful catch-22. If he didn't know, he is in a governance structure where anti-Catholic decisions happen comfortably and fearlessly. Things like the Ostermann promotion are the normal course of business, not exceptions requiring review. This is why I'm quite certain that his 'surprise' wasn't about the hire itself, it was about the backlash. If he were actually surprised by the hire itself, i.e. he considered it unacceptable, he would have fought against it, but instead, we got silence. My guess is that what shocked him wasn't that someone who calls pro-life advocacy 'white supremacy' got promoted, it's that people noticed and cared.
This is the standard playbook at Catholic universities like Notre Dame and BC. Anti-Catholic decisions, no matter how big, are the default, and the Catholic "mask" presidents claim ignorance of them when they are brought to their attention.
I remember in September of last year I was at BC's St. Thomas More Society, which is a group of faithful Catholic intellectuals. President Fr. Bill Leahy was giving a talk. Someone asked what the biggest change he had seen in his tenure was and, I kid you not, Fr. Leahy made the claim that the biggest change he had seen in his tenure as president was that the university had become "more Catholic" because of "formative education".
This was the most outrageous claim I had ever heard in my youngish life, because I remember in April of 2025 the rapper-singer Saweetie had performed a massive headliner concert for Marathon Monday. You might be thinking "who is that", but you can't even Google her, it will scandalize you. Long story short, a rapper in the sort of semi-to-fully pornographic genre, akin to Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, or Megan Thee Stallion. To be clear, this wasn't a little thing the art department put on, we're talking about a massive headliner concert that took months of coordination and cost at least a half a million dollars. (BC started putting on massively expensive concerts on Marathon Monday because the school was getting fined too much by the City of Boston for its hammered students, and they decided that spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring some artist in was cheaper than paying the fines.)
So, I asked him about the Saweetie concert. Fr. Leahy claimed ignorance of who the headliner was and said that the decision had been made by people beneath him and that if there were problems with it, that was on them, not him.
But this creates an impossible bind for his leadership. Either he knew about a half-million-dollar pornographic concert advertised campus-wide, in which case not only was he lying to us, but he also approved it. Or, he genuinely didn't know, which means he's built a governance structure where six-figure decisions directly contradicting Catholic mission happen so routinely without his knowledge or approval that he can claim ignorance when he hears of one. Both options are catastrophic failures of Catholic leadership. Again, when you delegate authority, you remain accountable for what happens under it.
I think he recognized this trap in real time, because he immediately pivoted to saying that as a Catholic university, BC doesn't do 'litmus tests' and that it's a 'pluralistic university.' In other words: I'm not actually going to govern this school as if it is a seriously Catholic institution. I hit him on that, by the way -- I asked him, in front of everyone, whether that was the vision of a Catholic university that Pope St. John Paul II had set forward in Ex Corde Ecclesia.
This is why the "I didn't know" defense is so bad. It shows that Fr. Leahy and Fr. Dowd function as Catholic masks over fundamentally anti-Church institutions. They provide just enough Catholic aesthetic (being a priest, wearing the collar around campus, etc.) to maintain donor confidence and alumni loyalty, while the actual governance structure operates on entirely secular progressive principles. They don't govern at all! Again, the priest-president's job isn't to ensure Catholic mission, it's to maintain plausible Catholic branding while the institution does what it was already going to do. That's why they "don't know": knowing would require them to actually govern, which would expose that they have no intention of making these universities actually Catholic.
"...that Ostermann had “decided not to move forward as director” of the institute."
Or perhaps, it had been decide for her.
The article further states that Father Dowd was "completely surprised", and felt "blindsided" by the opposition to this appointment.
That's a joke, right? What galaxy, what universe does a priest live in that he would be unconscious of the negative reaction to such a person? Perhaps, Football U. should be looking for a new leader.
This is good news. Notre Dame has made a mockery of the Catholic faith for far too long. I don't know if they actually saw error of their ways on this, but it appears that the people who write them checks did.
They just resigned their affiliation with Liu. One is still emeritus at the university and the other is still a professor, just no longer associated with Liu.
The real question is: who is this John McGreevy - the Provost - & what is his background and history in leadership? Has he said things or does he hold formal opinions that reject some Catholic teachings too?
A Pillar investigation into him and whether he strongly supports the university's Catholic identity above secular prestige in academia might be warranted
Alumnus here. He was the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters when I was an undergrad, and handed me my diploma. He is also an alumnus and has worked there since the 90s. His area of expertise is Catholic history, and has written several books on the subject. Thus, it is safe to say that he has a clear understanding of the tenets of his faith.
As far as I know, he has not made any controversial statements regarding Catholic teaching. He was certainly not someone who generated much commentary when I was there.
For those who may remember the Harriet Miers kerfuffle, this may be one of those cases where the individual has been permitted to withdraw to save face. I would like to think Notre Dame received the message and that is what happened, but maybe I'm being a bit naively optimistic (and even that scenario doesn't explain why they tried to make this appointment in the first place).
Good. God bless ND for making the right decision.
It sounds like it was Professor Ostermann's decision, not ND's.
Yes, unfortunate it required the professor having some decency and not the school having some backbone to achieve the right outcome.
She is still employed by ND. Which is another, deeper problem in the first place.
I think in withdrawals like this it's hard to say who decided. The admin could have suggested to her to withdraw so they didn't have to forcibly withdraw the promotion. It's cleaner for everyone
True and fair, but it doesn't sound like it's cleaner for those who opposed her promotion in the first place. Notre Dame needs to start being on the right side of these issues.
Exactly. ND was not involved in the decision.
Thanks be to God. Hopefully this will help them think a little more closely about this next time, as they realize people DO pay attention and care about such things!
Is she still teaching there?
Yes.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
> Multiple sources close to the university’s senior administration also told The Pillar that the appointment — and reaction to it — had caught Notre Dame president Fr. Robert Dowd “completely by surprise” and that he had not been aware of Ostermann’s promotion or its likely significance to the university community and public image.
And this is why this entire story was so surpassingly important. These status-obsessed leaders of these universities *don't even care to check* if the woman they were appointing to a major leadership position would do something like call opposition to child murder "white supremacy". Now, oh boy, they are going to be aware. The faculty, too, are going to be aware, and this is going to be a nationwide thing. What does this mean? Opposition to the Church is going to be less bold and less influential. That's souls right there. That's the work of God our Lord saving souls.
It sounds from his statement that he's not saying he wasn't aware of her views specifically; rather that he wasn't aware of her promotion in the first place. Which TBH for a large university does not seem that unusual to me - even if the president technically signs off, this appointment doesn't seem like something he would have been very personally involved in - like I wouldn't expect him to eg. know which other candidates were considered or what the decision criteria were. (Which of course, naturally leads to a question about the dean + departmental level leadership that would have been directly involved).
This is a very common bureaucratic sleight of hand that ensures nobody important faces institutional accountability when things like this happen. Apologies, because this is going to be a long comment, but it's very important.
First off, Fr. Dowd is the president. When you delegate authority, you are responsible for the decisions of your subordinates, so he is at least partially responsible for this decision, even if he wasn't aware of it.
Even further, though, when you think seriously about the claim that Fr. Dowd "wasn't aware," you run into an awful catch-22. If he didn't know, he is in a governance structure where anti-Catholic decisions happen comfortably and fearlessly. Things like the Ostermann promotion are the normal course of business, not exceptions requiring review. This is why I'm quite certain that his 'surprise' wasn't about the hire itself, it was about the backlash. If he were actually surprised by the hire itself, i.e. he considered it unacceptable, he would have fought against it, but instead, we got silence. My guess is that what shocked him wasn't that someone who calls pro-life advocacy 'white supremacy' got promoted, it's that people noticed and cared.
This is the standard playbook at Catholic universities like Notre Dame and BC. Anti-Catholic decisions, no matter how big, are the default, and the Catholic "mask" presidents claim ignorance of them when they are brought to their attention.
I remember in September of last year I was at BC's St. Thomas More Society, which is a group of faithful Catholic intellectuals. President Fr. Bill Leahy was giving a talk. Someone asked what the biggest change he had seen in his tenure was and, I kid you not, Fr. Leahy made the claim that the biggest change he had seen in his tenure as president was that the university had become "more Catholic" because of "formative education".
This was the most outrageous claim I had ever heard in my youngish life, because I remember in April of 2025 the rapper-singer Saweetie had performed a massive headliner concert for Marathon Monday. You might be thinking "who is that", but you can't even Google her, it will scandalize you. Long story short, a rapper in the sort of semi-to-fully pornographic genre, akin to Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, or Megan Thee Stallion. To be clear, this wasn't a little thing the art department put on, we're talking about a massive headliner concert that took months of coordination and cost at least a half a million dollars. (BC started putting on massively expensive concerts on Marathon Monday because the school was getting fined too much by the City of Boston for its hammered students, and they decided that spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring some artist in was cheaper than paying the fines.)
So, I asked him about the Saweetie concert. Fr. Leahy claimed ignorance of who the headliner was and said that the decision had been made by people beneath him and that if there were problems with it, that was on them, not him.
But this creates an impossible bind for his leadership. Either he knew about a half-million-dollar pornographic concert advertised campus-wide, in which case not only was he lying to us, but he also approved it. Or, he genuinely didn't know, which means he's built a governance structure where six-figure decisions directly contradicting Catholic mission happen so routinely without his knowledge or approval that he can claim ignorance when he hears of one. Both options are catastrophic failures of Catholic leadership. Again, when you delegate authority, you remain accountable for what happens under it.
I think he recognized this trap in real time, because he immediately pivoted to saying that as a Catholic university, BC doesn't do 'litmus tests' and that it's a 'pluralistic university.' In other words: I'm not actually going to govern this school as if it is a seriously Catholic institution. I hit him on that, by the way -- I asked him, in front of everyone, whether that was the vision of a Catholic university that Pope St. John Paul II had set forward in Ex Corde Ecclesia.
This is why the "I didn't know" defense is so bad. It shows that Fr. Leahy and Fr. Dowd function as Catholic masks over fundamentally anti-Church institutions. They provide just enough Catholic aesthetic (being a priest, wearing the collar around campus, etc.) to maintain donor confidence and alumni loyalty, while the actual governance structure operates on entirely secular progressive principles. They don't govern at all! Again, the priest-president's job isn't to ensure Catholic mission, it's to maintain plausible Catholic branding while the institution does what it was already going to do. That's why they "don't know": knowing would require them to actually govern, which would expose that they have no intention of making these universities actually Catholic.
"...that Ostermann had “decided not to move forward as director” of the institute."
Or perhaps, it had been decide for her.
The article further states that Father Dowd was "completely surprised", and felt "blindsided" by the opposition to this appointment.
That's a joke, right? What galaxy, what universe does a priest live in that he would be unconscious of the negative reaction to such a person? Perhaps, Football U. should be looking for a new leader.
Phew, that was a close one. Glory to God.
This is good news. Notre Dame has made a mockery of the Catholic faith for far too long. I don't know if they actually saw error of their ways on this, but it appears that the people who write them checks did.
Hopefully the 2 professors that resigned can come back too!
They just resigned their affiliation with Liu. One is still emeritus at the university and the other is still a professor, just no longer associated with Liu.
The real question is: who is this John McGreevy - the Provost - & what is his background and history in leadership? Has he said things or does he hold formal opinions that reject some Catholic teachings too?
A Pillar investigation into him and whether he strongly supports the university's Catholic identity above secular prestige in academia might be warranted
Alumnus here. He was the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters when I was an undergrad, and handed me my diploma. He is also an alumnus and has worked there since the 90s. His area of expertise is Catholic history, and has written several books on the subject. Thus, it is safe to say that he has a clear understanding of the tenets of his faith.
As far as I know, he has not made any controversial statements regarding Catholic teaching. He was certainly not someone who generated much commentary when I was there.
Excellent!
For those who may remember the Harriet Miers kerfuffle, this may be one of those cases where the individual has been permitted to withdraw to save face. I would like to think Notre Dame received the message and that is what happened, but maybe I'm being a bit naively optimistic (and even that scenario doesn't explain why they tried to make this appointment in the first place).