Op-ed explains what really happened with Notre Dame’s disappearing Catholic mission

A Crisis Magazine opinion piece has raised questions about whether the University of Notre Dame is retreating from its Catholic roots after the school removed and later restored a reference to its Catholic mission from staff core values.

At the center of the controversy is a recent administrative update in which Notre Dame temporarily removed the phrase “acceptance and support for the Catholic mission” from its staff values statement. 

In Nov. 25 his op-ed, John Mac Ghlionn, a psychosocial researcher and essayist covering psychology, social relations, culture, and institutional shifts, calls the disappearance of the mission language “the most telling sign” of Notre Dame’s changing priorities. He writes that the university dropped the language “with the subtlety of a company announcing layoffs on a Friday afternoon.”

“For two decades, that line reminded everyone why Notre Dame existed in the first place,” he writes. “Then it vanished. No explanation, no discussion, just gone.”

The removal drew swift notice from alumni and Catholic observers who viewed the omission as significant, prompting public criticism and questions about the administration’s reasoning. 

“If the FBI removed ‘uphold the law’ from its mission, people would scream. A Catholic university removing its mission should spark the same reaction,” Mac Ghlionn writes. 

Notre Dame later reinstated the original mission language, but Mac Ghlionn argues that the reinstatement did not undo the implications of its initial disappearance. He wrote, “Notre Dame eventually returned the Catholic mission to its core values, but only after enormous pressure. The reversal was forced, not heartfelt, and it doesn’t diminish the severity of the original sin.”

The op-ed expands into broader critique of Notre Dame’s direction, which he calls “a slow substitution of Catholic truth with secular fashion, wrapped in the reassuring language of progress.” 

Mac Ghlionn argued that the controversy over the mission statement reflects a shift in how Notre Dame understands its Catholic identity. 

“A mission strengthened by being removed is the kind of logic that thrives only in conference rooms where the coffee is endless and the convictions are on life support,” he writes. 

He argues that Notre Dame “still wants the appearance of being unmistakably Catholic, but it no longer wants the demands that come with it.” In his view, the result is an identity stretched so wide that it “now encompasses everything except the very thing that made it Catholic in the first place.”

Mac Ghlionn also connects the incident to what he sees as a broader ideological shift, pointing specifically to the growth of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts on campus.

 “Notre Dame has swollen its diversity, equity, and inclusion machinery with the eagerness of a school chasing applause from people who want nothing to do with its faith,” he asserts.

He argues that DEI structures operate on categories that conflict with Catholic understandings of the human person, stating, “DEI programs, by design, demand the sorting of students and staff by categories the Church has always viewed with caution.” 

As evidence of mission drift, he adds that the university’s DEI rebranding was “less a reform than a costume change, as if repainting a sign could disguise the ideological engine running behind it.”

Throughout the piece, he distinguishes between appearance and conviction. Notre Dame, he writes, still looks unmistakably Catholic.  

“The crosses shine and the basilica stands tall,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, ‘Touchdown Jesus’ surveys the stadium with a look that, after recent events, seems less triumphant than quietly exasperated.” 

He argues that external symbols mask an internal drift.

“The statues are kept spotless,” he wrote. “The faith beneath them is treated with a cautious arm’s length.”

Yet he says the university is not completely lost. 

“Its students still pray, he writes. “Its alumni still hope.” 

But he warns that renewal requires more than policy corrections.

 “A university that forgets why it exists,” he wrote, “will soon forget whom it serves.”