Introduction
In this bulletin, we reproduce (with permission, copyright preserved) an editorial by The Irish Rover’s editor-in-chief, Lucy Spence, in which she builds upon an accompanying article about the university’s degrading the obligation of all staff to “understand, accept and promote” its Catholic mission.
As we close the year, we also invite readers who share this concern to consider supporting Sycamore Trust’s work through a year-end gift.
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Please consider a gift to our year-end campaign. Your support provides the resources we need to continue the fight for Notre Dame’s Catholic identity—to keep the one true light shining on the Dome.
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In our previous bulletin, we described the public commotion around the University’s revisions of the “Notre Dame Values” prescribed for all staff employees, so it is enough here to summarize the outcome:
This is the provision guiding staff – everyone except faculty – that was deleted:
Leadership in Mission: Understands, accepts and supports the Catholic mission of the university and fosters values consistent with that mission.
The rich Mission Statement that staff were to heed describes Notre Dame as “a Catholic academic community of higher learning” “animated by prayer, liturgy, and service” and “committed to pursuing the religious dimensions of all human learning” in a “community graced by the Spirit of Christ.”
Under the new provision, staff are called upon merely
To be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university.
The former provision faithfully reflected St. John Paul II’s injunction in his apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education while the latter has nothing to do with it:
[A]ll administrators, at the time of their appointment, are to be informed about the Catholic identity of the Institution and its implications, and about their responsibility to promote, or at least to respect, that identity. (Paragraphs 4 and Art IV sec. 2)
This is because
[T]he dedication and witness of the non-academic staff are vital for the identity and life of the University,
In his statement announcing the new provision, Father Dowd did not explain why he had scrapped the former. Indeed, he did not even mention it. He simply said: “We have now included the language on Catholic mission as the first of our five core Values,” and he added, most improbably,
Our Catholic mission guides and informs all that we do.
The sentence is missing a “should,” as Ms. Spence shows in her illuminating editorial in which she concisely describes a number of other actions hostile to Catholic identity that require reversal.
These actions, together with other notorious events such as the honoring of Presidents Obama and Biden, formidable enemies of the Church on abortion and same-sex marriage, constitute the context in which to judge the administration’s unexplained cancellation of the long-standing staff obligation respecting Catholic mission.
The quiet, almost surreptitious, cancellation of the full-fledged Catholic mission obligation means precisely what it seems to mean: Notre Dame no longer expects its staff employees to understand and accept, much less promote, its robustly declared Catholic mission.
Do not attempt to click this video. The University removed it after reversing course on the mission value.
Now to Ms. Spence and the Irish Rover. We hope this editorial will prompt those of you who have not subscribed to the Rover to do so here.
Reinstating Catholic Values Isn’t Enough
Lucy Spence | December 8, 2025
A recent story about Notre Dame garnered the attention of thousands of social media users and many national news outlets, who criticized a change that university president Fr. Robert Dowd, C.S.C. had made to Notre Dame’s list of core staff values. After intense media backlash, the administration announced it would once again alter the list of core staff values in an attempt to make clear that Catholicism remains a key part of Notre Dame’s mission.
Most notable in the reversed decision was the explanation that Fr. Dowd gave to the Notre Dame community: A Catholic university should avoid giving even the perception that it is undermining Catholicism, lest it cause confusion.
Moving the mention of Catholicism from the list to the preamble and back again was not a direct violation of Catholic teaching, even if the final articulation of the value was arguably weaker and more vague. Nor was the muddled bureaucratic flip-flop the most notable scandal to take place on Our Lady’s campus.
And while we are encouraged by Fr. Dowd’s desire to avoid even the semblance of diluting Catholicism, we are also aware that the university is simultaneously still behaving in ways that are deeply contrary to its Catholic mission. These are the true scandals of the university, and they are much more serious than the latest media uproar. If, as Fr. Dowd claims, the university is committed to preserving its reputation as a distinctly Catholic institution, it must do so in all of its actions.
It must denounce and immediately suspend the use of faculty resources to provide contraceptives to students.
It must eliminate programming that either directly contradicts Catholic teachings or causes confusion, including events that celebrate sexual depravity and gender dysphoria.
It must support the spiritual formation of its students by implementing a pornography filter on campus Wi-Fi.
It must firmly censor the university-sponsored screenings of pornographic and anti-Catholic films on campus.
It must resume transparency about the ratio of Catholic faculty and work to maintain a “predominant number of Catholics,” as described in the Mission Statement.
It must wholeheartedly and unashamedly promote Catholicism in all of its admissions work with prospective students.
Finally, it must stop protecting claims of “academic freedom” when they conflict with the truths of the Catholic faith.
In Notre Dame,
Lucy Spence, Editor-in-Chief
Lucy Spence
Lucy Spence is a junior from McLean, Virginia majoring in piano performance and the Program of Liberal Studies, with a minor in philosophy. She can be reached at lspence@nd.edu.
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Oremus
O God of Truth and Love, You have called us into a loving and faithful relationship with You. Your Son identified Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and called us to follow Him wherever He goes.
In their care for and guardianship of the University and the students it serves, may the administrators of the University of Notre Dame always commit themselves to the pursuit and embrace of the Truth, which alone can set us free.
May the Holy Spirit lead them into all truth and recall them to it in times of peril. May they embrace the sorrow that comes from being different from, and rejected by, the world, so that they may rejoice always in the goodness of the Lord.
In the day of battle, may they joyfully take courage in Him who has already overcome the world.
We make our prayer through the intercession of Notre Dame, Our Mother, and in the Name of Jesus, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.
The above prayer is by Sycamore Trustee Father John Raphael (’89). To join us in regular prayer projects such as our Novena for Catholic Education and our Meditation on the 12-Days of Christmas, please join our Apostolate.
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Father John J. Raphael (’89) offers a monthly Mass for the intentions of our Sycamore Trust community. If you have an intention that you would like him to include at his next Mass, you may submit it by clicking on the following button.
