Catholic college students oppose graduation invitation to Ireland’s former president

Students at a Catholic college in the U.S. have requested that the school’s leadership rescind an invitation to Ireland’s former president, who has been asked to speak at commencement and to receive an honorary degree this year.

On March 6, the all-women’s Saint Mary’s College announced to students via email that Mary McAleese was scheduled to speak at the 2025 graduation ceremony. McAleese supported the repeal of Ireland’s pro-life amendment in 2018.

In response to the invitation, Belles for Life (the college’s pro-life club) and The Loretto Trust (a non-profit dedicated to preserving Saint Mary’s Catholic identity) spoke out against McAleese and created a petition opposing the speech. The Loretto Trust called the invitation “a grave scandal to the Catholic faith.”

Belles for Life president Jocelyn Porter told The Observer:

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.

Later I was like, let me actually look into this…

Over spring break, she and Belles for Life vice president Lydia Poe did some research on McAleese’s views and realized that her commencement invitation was “deeply concerning.” They sent a two-page letter to the college’s president, Katie Conboy, calling for her to rescind McAleese’s offer to speak.

READ: Actor Cillian Murphy compares a once pro-life Ireland to ‘the Dark Ages’

The letter cites McAleese’s support of expanding access to abortion, same-sex marriage, and women’s ordination to the priesthood as reasons that she has no place speaking at the Catholic school. She is also opposed to infant baptism, stating that it disregards babies’ “personal autonomy and fundamental human rights,” which seems ironic, given her lack of concern for the fundamental human right to life for those babies prior to birth.

“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,” said Poe.

She continued, “I think that’s fantastic to have diverse ideas out there, but our biggest problem is 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.”

The Loretto Trust also sent a letter to Conboy, stating that the invitation to McAleese “sends a scandalous message to students that one can actively oppose Church teachings while still being celebrated by a Catholic institution.”

Conboy, however, claimed that McAleese’s support for the repeal of Ireland’s pro-life law was a sign of her “unwavering commitment to the rights of the unborn.” As reported by the National Catholic Register, Conboy defended McAleese in a letter last month to the student newspaper, saying that McAleese’s “yes” vote in the 2018 effort to repeal the pro-life law was her way of supporting the language that “provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy,” not for the expansion of abortion.

“In other words, she voted to give Parliament the authority to consider and legislate on this issue, not on any actual proposed version of that legislation,” Conboy argued.

But Niamh Uí Bhriain, director of Irish advocacy group the Life Institute, said, “Saint Mary’s is free to invite whomever it likes to give its commencement address, but it is absolute nonsense to pretend that Mary McAleese did not vote to remove the recognition of the right to life of the unborn child from the Irish Constitution, allowing for the introduction of one of the most liberal abortion laws in Europe.”

The petition in opposition to McAleese’s speech and honorary degree states, “[W]e are calling on all concerned members of the Saint Mary’s College community to sign this petition and express your opposition to Dr. McAleese as the 2025 Commencement speaker. Together, we defend the faith.”