Catholic students are not happy with pro-choice former President of Ireland as commencement speaker
Students continue to protest one month after St. Mary’s College in Indiana announced its choice of former Irish president and pro-abortion advocate Mary McAleese.
A petition with over 2000 signatures is calling on the college to revoke its choice of the scheduled commencement speaker.
Students continue to protest one month after St. Mary’s College in Indiana announced its choice of former Irish president and pro-abortion advocate Mary McAleese as the Catholic institution’s 2025 commencement speaker.
A petition with over 2000 signatures is calling on the college to revoke its choice.
Belles for Life, the St. Mary’s chapter of Students For Life of America, published a letter in the college’s newspaper asking college President Katie Conboy to rescind the invitation to McAleese.
Both Conboy’s response and St. Mary’s website highlight McAleese’s various awards, leadership positions, and work as the Irish president, while omitting her pro-abortion views that contradict Catholic teaching.
Conboy rebuked opposition to the speaker’s selection, saying that groups like Belles for Life relied on “limited research and also circulated misinformation.” She also referred to McAleese as a “staunch Catholic” and “not pro-abortion.”
However, McAleese has voted to repeal Ireland’s Eighth Amendment, which helped legalize abortion, called “large chunks” of Catholic teaching “appalling,” supports female ordination, and even said “I wouldn’t send any of my children to a Catholic school” because of the church’s teaching on homosexuality.
The Loretto Trust, a body of parents, students, alumnae, and friends of St. Mary’s that seeks to preserve the school’s Catholic identity, also demanded the college reconsider, stating, “The role of a Catholic college is not to provide a platform for those who reject and defy the faith.”
Members of Belles for Life met with the college’s president earlier this month, yet one student official noted that the president’s “disinterest was clear” and that “[t]he meeting felt more like a kind formality and not like an opportunity to discuss real change.”
Students continue to raise support for their petition on social media and by sharing their story with news outlets such as Live Action and The Irish Rover
In 2022, the college also bestowed an honorary degree on commencement speaker M. Shawn Copeland, whose book Enfleshing Freedom suggests that Jesus was “queer.” In 2023, the all-female college decided to allow “transgender” individuals to enroll, but reversed the policy in the following months after facing significant backlash.
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“College leaders have the moral and sacred duty to renounce their plans and stand for the truth,” St. Mary’s College Republicans president and Campus Reform correspondent Macy Gunnell stated. “Students here will continue to speak out and protest until the administrators make the common-choice decision to uninvite Dr. Mary McAleese.”
The commencement ceremony will take place on May 17.
Campus Reform has reached out to St. Mary’s College for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
