NOTRE DAME, Indiana (LifeSiteNews) — Less than a month after the University of Notre Dame dropped a nearly two-decade old requirement for staff members to support its Catholic “mission,” the school reinstated language alluding to its religious orientation.
“Thanks to some constructive feedback we received, we now realize that placement is causing confusion and that some could interpret that not as elevating our mission as we intended but as a sign of diminishing commitment,” president Father Robert Dowd said in a staff announcement on November 21.
“To avoid any further confusion, we have now included the language on Catholic mission as the first of our five core values,” he added.
During town hall meetings with staff on October 29 and 30, Heather Christophersen, vice president of human resources, unveiled a new set of “ND Values.”
The “Values,” which were established under former president Father John Jenkins, previously directed staff to support “the University’s Catholic mission” and to foster “values consistent with that mission.” When the list was updated last month, specific mention of the Catholic faith was removed and in its place more generic goals focusing on four key areas – community, collaboration, excellence, and innovation – had been put in its place.
As of Dowd’s announcement last Friday, “Catholic Mission” has now been inserted as the first of the revamped five “ND Values.”
“Be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university,” it reads.
The Values will act as a guide to the more than 4,500 staff who work at the university in the administrative, communications, facilities, and other departments.
Christophersen previously explained to the student newspaper The Observer that her department had been holding focus groups over the past year and a half with the goal of being “the best global Catholic research institution” in the world. She noted that the university does not keep track of the religious beliefs of staff as it does for faculty and students.
Earlier this year, Notre Dame doubled down on diversity, inclusion, and equity practices. A report published by First Things in February revealed that the school’s provost office informed faculty three days before President Donald Trump was sworn in that they are looking to “increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities on our faculty.” The provost also told employees that the goal of hiring women and minorities was “equally important” as hiring “Catholic faculty and other faculty deeply committed to our mission.”
In 2022, Notre Dame founded the “Office of Institutional Transformation,” hiring several DEI staff to promote woke ideology on campus. Salaries for such persons were reportedly north of $6.5 million in total. A “Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” was also established in 2023.
While it has been long regarded as the pre-eminent Catholic university in the United States, Notre Dame has increasingly failed to live up to its professed identity. The school previously gave pro-abortion President Barack Obama an honorary award in 2009 and bestowed on Joe Biden its prestigious Laetare Medal in 2016. It has also hosted drag shows on campus, celebrated June as “pride month,” and promoted many other pro-LGBT initiatives.
Founded by French priest Father Edward Sorin in 1842, the university’s formal name is Notre Dame du Lac, or “Our Lady of the Lake.” In the 1970s, heterodox president Father Theodore Hesburgh made Notre Dame co-educational and helped draft the heavily criticized Land O’ Lakes statement, a document approved by presidents of various Catholic universities across the U.S. that declared independence from formal Church authority and doctrines.
