The selection of former president of Ireland Mary McAleese as the commencement speaker for the Saint Mary's College class of 2025 was announced to students via email March 6. Since then, both Belles for Life and The Loretto Trust have made statements calling for McAleese's offer to be rescinded, with the former calling her invitation “a grave scandal to the Catholic faith.”
In the email, Saint Mary's College President Katie Conboy explained that McAleese, who served as president from 1997 to 2011, is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers. Conboy added that McAleese is a recipient of numerous honors, including the American Ireland Humanitarian Award and the Tipperary Peace Prize.
“She has continued to build bridges as an advocate for justice, particularly around issues important to women,” Conboy wrote.
McAleese previously spoke at the College for an event sponsored by the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership in 2015.
In an interview with The Observer, Belles for Life president Jocelyn Porter and vice president Lydia Poe acknowledged McAleese's accomplishments, but shared they don’t believe she is the ideal person for a commencement address.
“When we first received that email announcing the speakers and the honorary degrees, I didn’t recognize many names mentioned. A friend of mine actually sent me some information after doing a quick Google search of Dr. Mary McAleese, and I was like ‘Oh that’s a little concerning’ and again didn’t think much of it,” Porter said. “Later I was like let me actually look into this, so over spring break me and vice president Lydia did some deep diving on all of her stances on everything, realizing that this was deeply concerning.”
She shared that after this research, the executive board, which consists of Porter and Poe, felt called to respond.
The club sent a two-page letter to Conboy March 14 calling for the rescinding of McAleese's offer to speak. Porter shared that both her and Poe drafted and published the letter, which was made available to club members shortly after being sent to Conboy.
The letter, which makes references to the decision to have M. Shawn Copeland speak at the 2022 commencement ceremony, reads, “The College has invited these speakers under the guise of academic freedom, female empowerment, exploration of thought and diversity. However the reality is far more concerning; these speakers [Copeland and McAleese] have only continued to perpetuate the ‘Anti-Catholic’ Church systemic bias growing increasingly prevalent on our campus.”
[Editor's note: this letter was also published as a letter to the editor in The Observer.]
The letter cites McAleese's support of expanding abortion access, same-sex marriage and women's ordination to the priesthood as reasoning towards her being unfit to speak at commencement, highlighting her voting to repeal Ireland's eighth amendment, which legalized abortion across the country.
Both Porter and Poe shared that they feel the traditional Catholic voice is heard on campus. However, Porter said that “It just seems to be a little one sided, at least from our perspective. We talk about getting diversity of thought and getting all the perspectives as a liberal arts college, but it's just concerning that it feels like the traditional, Catholic approach is not typically introduced in the form of speakers invited to campus.”
“The fact of the matter is I think with a lot of the professors on campus and administration, they like to push an agenda, more so of inclusivity and diversity, opposed to Catholicism. And of course, Catholicism encompasses that, but we can’t exchange diversity and inclusion for Catholic teaching,” Poe shared.
“I think that's fantastic to have diverse ideas out there, but our biggest problem is us the college giving her an honorary degree and promoting her as an honorary role model. As Katie Conboy said in her email, we should look to her as a role model, and that's just something I can't get behind," Poe said.
The Loretto Trust, a non-profit organization which aims to preserve Saint Mary's Catholic identity by acting as a source of information for the College's alumnae, sent a similar letter to Conboy on March 15.
The Loretto Trust's leadership, headed by president Linda Van Eck Shepard, maintained in the letter that inviting her to speak at commencement, “sends a scandalous message to students that one can actively oppose Church teachings while still being celebrated by a Catholic institution.”
The letter highlighted instances where McAleese has voiced opposition to Catholic Church teachings, such as her stance on infant baptism as disregarding “their personal autonomy and fundamental human rights.”
The Loretto Trust's leadership noted that since receiving her doctorate in canon law, she declared her mission has been to “spend her retirement challenging the Catholic Church.”
The Trust's statement, made available on their website, was reported on by The National Catholic Register.
