The University of Notre Dame generated plenty of headlines recently — most of them critical — when it named political science professor Susan Ostermann to lead the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs. While no one challenged Ostermann's scholarly bona fides, Catholics around the country were profoundly distressed by the announcement, given Ostermann's zealous advocacy for abortion, her role in the eugenicist Population Council, and her characterization of pro-life activists as misogynists, racists and white supremacists.

A number of American bishops spoke out against the appointment, including Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, who leads the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, which includes Notre Dame. And while the university consistently expressed its support for Ostermann, she eventually withdrew from the position, which was to have started this coming summer.

Last week, the head of Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, Jennifer Newsome Martin, published a thoughtful essay on the matter in Public Discourse. In that essay, titled "How Catholic Should a Catholic Institution Be?" Martin references the writings of the late Alasdair MacIntyre (a de Nicola Center Senior Distinguished Research Fellow until his death last year), who argued that today's research universities "do not share any clear agreement on what constitutes rational inquiry," and will therefore "simply tolerate 'limitless disagreement.'" Martin agrees with MacIntyre that at Catholic institutions like Notre Dame, "there are foundational points that 'by their very nature cannot accept the indifference........

© Townhall