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Way Maker: 2021 Laetare Medalist Carla Harris

2021-05-17T16:00:00-04:00

When Carla Harris — finance powerhouse, gospel singer, author and winner of the University of Notre Dame’s 2021 Laetare Medal — started working at Morgan Stanley in 1987, she earned a reputation not just as an ace deal-closer on the capital markets desk. Her penchant for prayer also gained status in the boardroom.

“While I did not wear ‘Holy Roller’ on my sleeve, I also didn’t hide it,” she said. “When I started, those 100-hour work weeks were fact, not fiction.”

If a deal was not going very well, Harris would run down the street to St. Patrick’s Church and pray for an hour. Recalling this time, Harris said: “It got to be such a running joke that some of my colleagues would say, “This deal is not going well; Carla, where are you going for lunch?”

To read the full story, click here.

Sommo Poeta: Dante at Notre Dame

2021-04-28T15:20:00-04:00

In anticipation of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, and on the Feast of the Annunciation, Pope Francis issued “Splendour of Light Eternal,” an apostolic letter calling Dante “supreme poet” and “prophet of hope and a witness to the innate yearning for the infinite present in the human heart.” The Holy Father added that he wished to join the popes before him in honoring and extolling the poet and “to propose him anew for the consideration of the Church, the great body of the faithful, literary scholars, theologians and artists.”

The University of Notre Dame has long traditions in the research and teaching of Dante and is today considered one of the leading centers in the world for the study of the great Catholic poet.

When in 1321, the same year he died, Dante completed his “Divine Comedy” — a defining work of Western literature — he could not have anticipated the centuries-long impact of his three-canticle, 100-canto, 14,233-line, hendecasyllabic, terza rima poem. But those closest to his work are not surprised.

Just ask Theodore Cachey, University of Notre Dame professor of Italian and the Ravarino Family Director of Italian and Dante 91��Ƶ.

To read the full story, click here.

The truth about Christ lies in contradiction, philosopher finds

2021-03-29T15:40:00-04:00

While the quest to explain how Christ can be both fully human and fully divine enjoys a long, fascinating history, Jc Beall, the O’Neill Family Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, believes that the quest should end.

Beall is an expert in logic, the philosophy of logic and especially nonstandard (or “deviant”) logic, and his most recent work explores longstanding problems in philosophy of religion.

In his newest research, “The Contradictory Christ,” Beall argues that instead of trying to get around the apparent contradiction of the incarnation, Christian thinkers should accept what many thinkers have long charged: at the very crux of the Christian theory lies a contradiction.

“I believe that Christ is a contradictory being, and that all Christian thinkers should accept that Christ is a being of whom some claims are both true and false,” Beall said.

According to Beall, orthodox work on the incarnation begins with the standard doctrine that Christ is fully divine and fully human — having all properties that are essential to God but also all properties that are essential to being human, including all the essential limitations of being human. Philosophers and theologians have long struggled with this tension and, in a quest for logical consistency, have articulated theories that attempt to dissolve the apparent contradiction.

“The history of heresies, charitably interpreted, is really the history of Christians trying to get away from the contradiction of Christ,” Beall said. “They flee the contradiction because of an unfounded dogmatism about logic that requires rejecting contradictions, but in so doing, they are actually losing the radical truth of God incarnate.”

Beall said that logic-respecting Christians confront a choice: either stick with the mainstream story about logic and thereby lose a distinctive truth of Christian theology, or reject the mainstream story about logic and accept that the truth of Christ involves contradiction.

“Getting closer to a true account of Christ means dialing down the standard theory of logic, which tells us that every statement about the world is either true or false, and also that no statement about the world is both true and false,” he said.

But how does this really work? Deviating from standard logic is unfamiliar to many, but Beall said the basic idea is straightforward, and one way philosophers explain the concept is through so-called Liar Sentences:

* The starred sentence is false.

Beall explained: “The starred sentence is true if (and only if) it is false. Hence, if the starred sentence is either true or false, then it is both true and false. While one might reject that the starred sentence is either true or false (an option opened up by nonstandard logic), and thereby avoid the starred-sentence contradiction, the situation is very different with the doctrine of the incarnation. Rejecting that Christ is both divine and human runs immediately into heresies recorded in the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon.”

Rejecting that Christ is both divine and human is simply a rejection of the standard account of Christ — full stop, he added.

“So, unlike options for the starred sentence, the apparent contradiction of Christ cannot be negotiated: Christ is both human and divine,” Beall said. “The apparent contradiction of Christ remains, and it is time to accept that appearance is reality.

“The incarnation is supposed to be a radically unique event, bringing transcendence and immanence together in a unique way, and it certainly does so in a walking, talking contradictory being; it is no wonder that faith is required to embrace the truth of Christ.”

Contact: Amanda Skofstad, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-4313, skofstad@nd.edu

Carla Harris, business leader and gospel singer, to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal

2021-03-14T10:00:00-04:00

Carla Harris, vice chairman of wealth management and senior client adviser at Morgan Stanley — as well as a celebrated gospel singer, speaker and author — will be awarded the University of Notre Dame’s 2021 Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics, at the 176th University Commencement Ceremony on May 23 (Sunday).

Throughout her exceptional career, Carla Harris has exemplified the highest ideals of American enterprise, championed the principle that opportunity should never be denied on the basis of gender or race and generously mentored countless rising leaders,” said Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “Enriched by her gifts as a singer and public speaker, her work in the competitive world of banking is firmly rooted in her commitment to service, developing the next generation of leaders and her Catholic faith.”

Harris began her career at a time when very few of her colleagues were Black or women, and her trajectory has been steadily ascendant. She was chair of the Morgan Stanley Foundation from 2005 to 2014 and is a member of the boards for Harvard University and the Walmart Corp.

In 2013, Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council, an independent counsel to the president, Congress and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Characteristic of Harris’ approach to her own success has been a mantra that has carried her beyond many obstacles and naysayers: “Never count yourself out.” Harris coaches others with a “negative motivation” approach, leveraging what people say cannot be done into energy to prove them wrong. She likewise understands her successes as a responsibility to help others, saying, “We are blessed so that we may be a blessing to others."

Consistent with this belief, Harris has mentored hundreds of associates and led efforts focused on promoting women and people of color in business. She oversees Morgan Stanley’s multicultural client strategy and helped build the company’s Multicultural Innovation Lab, which brings together companies on an accelerator program for innovative tech startups led by multicultural entrepreneurs.

Harris is the author of “Expect to Win” and “Strategize to Win,” which she wrote to share what she has learned about pathways to career success.

Harris began singing at age 9 at a fourth-grade talent show, and progressed to Baptist and Catholic church choirs in her teens, Harvard’s renowned Radcliffe Choral Society, the St. Charles Gospelites and her own band, Rhythm Company. She has released multiple albums and produced and performed sold-out benefit concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theatre.

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, Harris is the daughter of a school teacher and a commercial fishing boat captain. She attended Bishop Kenny High 91��Ƶ and graduated with honors in 1980. When a guidance counselor suggested Harris avoid applying to Ivy League schools due to their competitiveness, she channeled this negativity into determination and applied to state schools as well as Ivies. She was accepted to all, but chose Harvard, where she graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics; she later earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business 91��Ƶ with second-year honors.

In 2001, Harris married her high school sweetheart, Victor Franklin, at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Harlem, where she remains an active parishioner. The couple and their two daughters, Dakota and McKinley, reside nearby.

The Laetare (pronounced lay-TAH-ray) Medal is so named because its recipient is announced each year in celebration of Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent on the Church calendar. “Laetare,” the Latin word for “rejoice,” is the first word in the entrance antiphon of the Mass that Sunday, which ritually anticipates the celebration of Easter. The medal bears the Latin inscription, “Magna est veritas et praevalebit” (“Truth is mighty, and it shall prevail”).

Established at Notre Dame in 1883, the Laetare Medal was conceived as an American counterpart of the Golden Rose, a papal honor that antedates the 11th century. The medal has been awarded annually at Notre Dame to a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”

Previous recipients of the Laetare Medal include Civil War Gen. William Rosecrans, operatic tenor John McCormack, President John F. Kennedy, Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, novelist Walker Percy, labor activist Monsignor George G. Higgins, Homeboy Industries founder Rev. Gregory Boyle, S.J., Rio Grande Valley Catholic Charities Executive Director Sister Norma Pimentel, M.J., civil rights and education leader Norman Francis, singer Aaron Neville and actor Martin Sheen.

Contact: Amanda Skofstad, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-4313, skofstad@nd.edu

ND expert: From financial crash to coronavirus, Ireland a lab for major social experiments

2021-03-10T15:00:00-05:00

As people in Ireland begin a second year of virtual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations due to the coronavirus pandemic, Notre Dame expert Brian Ó Conchubhair said the time is ripe for the Irish diaspora and fans of the holiday to move beyond Irish stereotypes of drinking and making merry and consider the sweeping social and cultural changes Ireland has experienced in just 13 years.

“In a relatively short amount of time, Ireland has welcomed many of the diaspora back home, plus two generations of new migrants, and this has radically changed the composition and culture of modern Ireland,” he said. “We like to point out that St. Patrick was a migrant from Wales, and this fact still speaks to the Irish experience, but perhaps in a new way — not in the way we first thought.”

Ó Conchubhair, associate professor of Irish language and literature and fellow of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish 91��Ƶ and the Kellogg Institute for International 91��Ƶ, is co-editor of the newly released “Routledge International Handbook of Irish 91��Ƶ,” which examines Irish history from the 2008 global financial crash through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Contributors to the volume unpack how, after an almost complete reversal of previous "Celtic Tiger" fortunes, Ireland has been a laboratory for major social experiments, including being the first country to ban public smoking and legalize gay marriage as well as becoming a focal point in the Brexit debates.

Additionally, Ó Conchubhair noted that a devoutly Catholic Ireland now faces myriad crises of Church moral credibility with failing to deal with the IRA in the Troubles, a failed first divorce referendum, mishandling of clerical sex abuse and revelations of mother and baby home scandals.

“The Church in Ireland actually predated the foundation of the state and has historically been heavily involved in its administration; because the bishops and cardinals always gave guidance, we don't now have the structures to fill that vacuum,” Ó Conchubhair said. “Indeed, when St. (then Pope) John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, the country closed down, but when Pope Francis visited in 2018, hardly anyone showed up to see him.”

Contact: Brian Ó Conchubhair at oconchubhair.1@nd.edu

ThinkND series to explore world religions

2021-01-13T13:00:00-05:00

University of Notre Dame theologians from the World Religions World Church program will embark on a seven-session virtual teaching series examining the Catholic Church in a global religion context starting Jan. 26 (Tuesday) and running through October. This program, hosted by ThinkND, will enable learners to enrich their understanding of the Church’s relationship with believers of other faiths around the world.

Gabriel Reynolds, the Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology, is a member of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims and will lead the first four sessions that delve into the overlap between the Bible and the Quran, the historical relationship between the Church and Islam and the theological tensions and harmonies between believers in both traditions. Reynolds’ sessions will consider questions such as:

What is the Christian view of the Bible and the Islamic view of the Quran?
What are Christian and Islamic views of sin and salvation?
Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

Further sessions will examine the Church in the Holy Land, the Church in Africa and the Church’s engagement with Buddhist and Hindu traditions. They will be led by Jerusalem Global Gateway Executive Director Daniel Schwake and theologians Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C., R. Trent Pomplun and Bradley Malkovsky.

“We take inspiration from Pope Francis’ model of cultivating dialogue and friendship across religious traditions, including the Document on Human Fraternity, which marked the first time the Catholic Church co-authored an official papal document with a non-Christian,” said Reynolds. “The Holy Father’s forthcoming apostolic journey to Iraq further reinforces his belief that all people are children of God.”

This series includes pre-recorded, short videos available at any time, suggested readings and weekly live sessions. All are welcome to participate in this free program, which is hosted on ThinkND, Notre Dame’s open online learning community that features videos, podcasts, articles and other content from Notre Dame faculty and experts.

“As the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., said, ‘Notre Dame can and must be a crossroads … where differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, respect and love,’” said Dolly Duffy, executive director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association. “It is in this spirit of connecting, learning and coming together that ThinkND and the Alumni Association are proud to collaborate on this series to help our Notre Dame family better understand the world in which we live.”

Partners for this series include the College of Arts and Letters, the McGrath Institute for Church Life, the Tantur Ecumenical Institute and the Jerusalem Global Gateway.

For more information, visit think.nd.edu.

Notre Dame VP of mission engagement, church affairs elected to Strada Education Network board

2020-11-23T14:00:00-05:00

Rev. Gerard J. Olinger, C.S.C., University of Notre Dame vice president for mission engagement and church affairs, has been elected effective Jan. 1 to the board of trustees for Strada Education Network, a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve lives by forging pathways between education and employment.

Father Olinger joins Aminta Breaux, president of Bowie State University, and Nicole Thorne Jenkins, the John A. Griffin Dean of the McIntire 91��Ƶ of Commerce at the University of Virginia, as newly elected board members. Strada Network also announced that Marlene Coulis, marketing strategy consultant and a former executive of Anheuser-Busch, has been elected as the board’s next chair.

“It is a great honor to be invited to serve this innovative organization,” Father Olinger said. “Strada’s mission aligns well with the University and Congregation of Holy Cross mission to build lives through quality education, and I look forward to learning more and contributing to Strada’s future.”

William D. Hansen, Strada president and chief executive officer, said: “Adding these dynamic leaders to our board will guide our mission impact for years to come, and I am grateful for the knowledge and passion they each bring.”

Father Olinger stewards and deepens Notre Dame’s Catholic and Holy Cross mission and is the University’s liaison to the Congregation of Holy Cross, the U.S. bishops and the Holy See. He also oversees the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason in Dublin and the Grotto Network.

Previously, Father Olinger served as vice president for university relations, vice president for student affairs and executive assistant to the president at the University of Portland. He also served as concurrent assistant professor of political science at Portland. He holds bachelor’s, juris doctorate and a master’s of divinity degrees from Notre Dame. Before taking on his current role at Notre Dame, he served on its Board of Trustees. He is a current member of the board of directors for King’s College and is licensed as an attorney in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

Strada Education Network combines research, thought leadership, strategic philanthropy, mission-aligned investments and a network of affiliate organizations to serve Americans seeking to complete postsecondary education and training, gain clear value from those experiences and build meaningful careers.

New research pieces together Piranesi’s books — from the backs of drawings

2020-11-17T08:00:00-05:00

While early modern artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi has been principally known for his drawings and etchings of ancient Rome, new research from Heather Hyde Minor, professor of art history at the University of Notre Dame, reinterprets Piranesi’s artistic oeuvre by flipping the works over and reading what is written on the backs.

Minor’s “Piranesi Unbound,” co-authored with Carolyn Yerkes, associate professor of early modern architecture at Princeton University, examines nearly 200 of Piranesi’s engravings and drawings. The researchers work from the perspective that these prints were meant to be pages in a dozen volumes about the monuments and history of Rome, and also about the limits of what can be known about the past. The research, recuperative in method, serves as a biography of Piranesi’s books, bringing text and image together to reveal a learned mind alive with biting wit and unflinching big-picture questions.

Heather Hyde Minor

“Piranesi loved to make ancient Rome look grandiose and overpowering,” Minor said. “He also knew how to use images to make arguments in service of advertising.”

Many of Piranesi’s early works were copperplates sold to Roman publishers as illustrations for Grand Tour guidebooks. Later in his career, he became a publisher himself.

When Minor arrived at Notre Dame in 2015, Cheryl Snay, curator of European art at the Snite Museum of Art, pulled some drawings based on Minor’s research interests. One was a Piranesi drawing, and when Minor turned it over, she found a printed text.

“This was very exciting because I knew that just a few months prior, Princeton University had acquired another sheet by the artist that also had text on its back,” Minor said.

Starting with the idea that the drawings must be made on pages from a book, she began reconstructing these passages about tombs, which included italicized text signaling content quoted from other sources. There were also spelling mistakes, suggesting the drawings were made on discarded proof pages for a book, not a finished product.

Thus began a multi-continent, multi-scholar collaboration to study the backs of Piranesi drawings, many of which are located in London, Berlin and New York. Minor said it was essential to go and physically see the objects; in order for Piranesi to print a text or image on paper, the paper had to be damp, which is why his drawings had to have been done last.

What Minor and colleagues found in these works was the artist telling them about his work and his life — his art.

“Most of these drawings show men working in Piranesi’s print shop, and he’s sitting there with a scrap paper pile next to him, doodling, looking at the guy who is hanging up wet prints on a clothesline, or working on a copperplate while wearing the heavy apron to keep acid off him,” Minor said.

On these pieces of waste paper, Minor said, Piranesi sketched images of men printing on paper, with the visual effect of sitting next to the artist, looking over his shoulder in his studio.

“If we stop looking at these drawings as loose sheets of paper and think about them as designed to be pages of books that go with other printed images, that can open up a new way of seeing the career of one of the 18th century’s great artists,” Minor said. “Bookmaking was his primary medium, not printmaking.”

These findings have significant implications for museums and also collectors, Minor said, adding that Piranesi’s broad fan base includes such figures as Victor Hugo and Walt Whitman.

Beyond its impact on the art world, this research has broad interdisciplinary value because of the kinds of questions central to Piranesi’s work. Like many thinkers of his time, Piranesi was engaged in the process of distinguishing primary and secondary sources.

“‘How do we know what we know?’ is Piranesi’s core question across media, and he challenges us to think about what texts can teach us, and not to limit our view of what counts as evidence or a primary source,” Minor said.

Currently on sabbatical in Rome, Minor is working on a biography of Piranesi for a non-specialist audience.

Father Malloy surveys 175-plus years of Notre Dame

2020-10-15T09:00:00-04:00

In his newly released book, “Monk’s Notre Dame: People, Places and Events,” Notre Dame President Emeritus Rev. Edward “Monk” Malloy, C.S.C., offers readers a narrated tour of major University moments and leaders from the past half century. Rooted in the natural and built environments of Notre Dame’s iconic campus, “Monk’s Notre Dame” traverses material that is historical and personal as well as spiritual.

Father Malloy, who led the University from 1987 to 2005, recalls in the book’s introduction an old saying about Notre Dame and its leaders: “Their blood is in the bricks.” While this saying connotes a collective celebration of more than 175 years of individual contributions, Father Malloy also points to its sense of shared sacrifice and mission that grow from Notre Dame’s distinctiveness as a Catholic university.

Moving to from people to place, Father Malloy chronicles the history of campus buildings and their deeply felt significance to the Notre Dame community — from the log cabin chapel of 1842, to Washington Hall and LaFortune Student Center (then Science Hall) in the 1880s, to the more recent academic and athletic building projects and the Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park. He also curates a list of the top 10 most essential — and possibly most beautiful — Notre Dame buildings to visit on campus.The 17 Holy Cross priests who have served the University as president receive overview biographies, and Father Malloy notes that five of them were born outside the United States, four have been named John, many were from very large families and two each were surnamed Walsh, Cavanaugh and O’Donnell — though none were related. Father Malloy also profiles a number of Holy Cross priests and brothers currently in other positions of University leadership.

In recounting the many pivotal moments of Notre Dame’s history, Father Malloy includes the cholera outbreak in the 1850s, the fire that destroyed the Main Building in 1879, its reconstruction with the Blessed Virgin Mary atop the Golden Dome, the introductions of the football program and coeducation, President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C.’s role in advising American presidents and drafting the Land O’Lakes charter, and advances made by subsequent presidents in graduate education, research funding and the University’s global footprint.

“The book,” said Father Malloy, “reveals my love affair with Notre Dame.”

There Will Be Singing: New echoes awaken in Notre Dame Stadium

2020-10-07T13:00:00-04:00

On a sunny Wednesday morning, Mark Doerries, director of graduate studies and head of the graduate choral conducting program for Sacred Music at Notre Dame, sits masked in an empty choir rehearsal room of O’Neill Hall of Music and Sacred Music. He recalls the day in spring 2020 when the choral music fell silent.

“I think we all went through a grieving period,” he says of his guild, still smiling. “Not only was our vocation and career as choral musicians suspended due to the pandemic, but also it was deemed very dangerous — so millions of people who take part in creating music, creating art, socializing and having a spiritual connection with singing had to accept that choir as usual would be, for a time, unsafe.”

For graduate students studying sacred music at Notre Dame, conducting vocalists in preparation for a major recital is an academic requirement. This typically takes the form of a 32-person choir practicing indoors. Over the summer, the sacred music faculty weighed options for how to help students safely fulfill this requirement and stay on track toward degree completion.

To read the story, click here.

Notre Dame professor co-designs first AP Seminar on African diaspora

2020-09-17T14:00:00-04:00

Ernest Morrell, professor of Africana studies and English, the Coyle Professor in Literacy Education and director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame, collaborated with fellow subject experts to create the first capstone course on the African diaspora for AP Seminar high school teachers and students. The curricular content — which includes interactive maps, databases, lesson plans and other resources — is now available to educators on Athena.

Ernest Morrell

AP Seminar is an interdisciplinary course aimed at teaching critical thinking and research skills, and its format and flexibility lend themselves to introducing complex topics like the African diaspora. College Board piloted the content for the course during the 2019-20 academic year with 10 teachers, and, as a member of the AP Seminar Development Committee, Morrell and fellow researchers worked with teachers to facilitate student conversations and refine materials.

The course offers teachers and students tools to explore themes such as:

What is the definition, meaning and importance of the African diaspora?
What initiated the forced dispersal of Africans outside of Africa?
Which events/nations/regions were involved in the slave trade?
Across the diaspora, whose stories get told, and who decides?
Resistance, rebellion and resilience
Cultural connections through the arts

Morrell said that while long-existing racial inequities have been exacerbated and brought to the fore by the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police brutality, the broader importance and urgency of this new course content lies in the vastly understudied size, impact, growth and value of the African diaspora as a site of study and engagement for young people.

“Were it an independent nation, the African diaspora would form the third-largest country on Earth; taken together with the continent of Africa, that is more than 20 percent of the world’s population,” he noted in an introductory webinar for teachers. “By 2050, UNICEF estimates that 40 percent of all births will occur in sub-Saharan Africa.”

In working with Morrell and other experts, Rushi Sheth, executive director of the AP Capstone Diploma Program at College Board, said he has come to appreciate the many different themes and applications of the African diaspora. “This breadth is reflected in the resources teachers have posted, from interactive maps on transatlantic slave voyages to an AP Seminar syllabus with a ‘crunk feminism’ theme,” he said. “It is so much more than a history; it is resistance, arts, culture, language and more.”

Morrell added that this initiative is the first major course content offering of its kind, and the researcher-teacher partnership with College Board offers a chance to introduce students to the African diaspora in ways that pull them in, engage them, make them feel connected and increase their intercultural understanding. Additionally, Morrell noted the course creates space for connecting African American studies to a large and growing global framework.

“Globalizing all of our disciplines and inquiries in ways that include the continent and African diaspora is a move we will all need to make in our courses,” he said.

Learn more at www.teachathena.org.

Trump must contend with a mobilized religious left, new research finds

2020-09-17T09:00:00-04:00

While more than 80 percent of white Evangelicals voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, their mobilization at the congregation level has since generally plateaued, and new research finds that progressive congregations have surged in their political activism, likely in direct response to Trump administration policies.

A new study by Kraig Beyerlein, University of Notre Dame associate professor of sociology, and Mark Chaves, Duke University professor of sociology, analyzes data from the National Congregations Study (NCS)— a nationally representative sample of U.S. congregations over time — and finds that the very congregations that should have increased their mobilization the most under Trump in fact increased it the least, including on issues for which Trump has strongly advocated, like immigration and endorsing candidates.

Even on issues that inspired religious liberty executive orders, like endorsing political candidates and wanting to do so without losing tax-exempt status, conservative and predominantly white evangelical Protestant congregations trail well behind Black Protestant churches. In addition, these churches increased their political activism the most between the Obama and Trump administrations.

With the 2020 presidential election on the near horizon, Beyerlein discusses what he and his co-researcher learned about the political engagement of U.S. congregations — and how that may impact results on Nov. 3.

Kraig Beyerlein

When you examine faith-based political activity at the congregation level, what are you measuring?

The NCS contains a range of political activities, such as offering opportunities for involvement during religious services, organizing voter registration drives or get-out-the-vote efforts, distributing voter guides, hosting candidates as speakers, lobbying elected officials, and mobilizing marches or protests. In more recent waves of the NCS, the cause or issue (such as immigration or poverty) for which congregations lobby or march has also been measured. And for some of these causes or issues, the NCS captures the particular side of the mobilizing effort — pro- or anti-immigrant rights, for example.

What surprised you most about the mobilization of America’s congregations during 2018-19?

This wave of the NCS asked whether congregations had endorsed candidates, and if not, whether they would do so if this action would not put their tax-exempt status at risk. Four percent of congregations had engaged in this partisan political activity, and 17 percent of those that had not said they would if tax law was changed in their favor. Combining these numbers, then, over one-fifth of congregations across the United States would endorse candidates if they were free to do so without legal repercussions.

While this number is higher than anticipated, the real surprise was the type of congregations that would be most likely to endorse candidates under this condition. Predominately white evangelical Protestant churches — critical mobilizing sites of Trump’s political base — were the least likely, at 11 percent, despite the president signaling his approval by signing an executive order in May 2017, though the implementation of this order remains unclear. Black Protestant churches led the way, by far, in terms of both actually endorsing candidates and desiring to do so if tax law was changed. Moreover, almost half of politically liberal congregations reported that they would endorse candidates if they could. By comparison, only 11 percent of politically conservative congregations answered they would.

Thus, despite Trump’s intention to promote this partisan political activity among conservative churches around the nation by attempting to change tax law, the data indicate conservative churches would be the least likely to take advantage of the opportunity to do so.

What are some of your key takeaways on the faith-based political activity of Catholic parishes, especially on immigration and sanctuary churches?

I was very excited that the 2018-19 NCS included a question asking congregations whether they had declared themselves as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Up to this point, we lacked a nationally representative estimate of this important and timely congregation-based political activity.

Overall, we found 4 percent of congregations had done so at the time of the 2018-19 NCS. Even though the question asked about declaring rather than actively housing undocumented immigrants, this low number is not surprising given the costs and risks involved in latter, for which the former is a first step. For instance, government repression is a possibility, which happened to churches during the 1980s Sanctuary movement. Given the current administration’s anti-immigration policies and rhetoric, it certainly seems like history could repeat itself.

Against this backdrop, it is notable that nearly a third of Catholic parishes declared themselves as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants under the Trump regime. Combined with their relatively high levels of lobbying or marching for immigrant rights in the 2012 and 2018-19 NCS waves, it is clear that Catholic parishes are an important faith-based force to defend and uphold the human dignity of people regardless of the country in which they were born.

How does the political activity in this fourth wave of data compare to previous waves?

We observed a significant uptick in nearly half of the political activity measures repeated across NCS waves.

Importantly, we found that the post-2012 mobilizing surge was concentrated among Black Protestant churches. Not only does this reflect the historical continuity of activism within Black Protestant churches — during the U.S. civil rights movement, for instance — but also the fact that these churches are likely rising up to confront violence against Black people and an administration that does not represent their interests (the majority of members of Black churches vote Democrat).

On the former point, we observed from the fourth wave of the NCS that nearly half of Black Protestant churches organized a discussion about policing in the last year, which is much higher than the rate of congregations of other religious groups. Since prior waves of the NCS did not ask this question, we do not know whether this represents an increase over time for this activity in Black Protestant churches, but it is clear that this issue is of greater salience to these congregations.

Contact: Amanda Skofstad, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-4313, skofstad@nd.edu

New history of Notre Dame charts academic growth, consistency in mission

2020-08-11T12:00:00-04:00

In new research, Rev. Thomas Blantz, C.S.C., Notre Dame professor emeritus of history, presents the story of America’s premier Catholic university from its inception as a French-founded boys’ school in 1842 to its status as an acclaimed undergraduate and international research institution of the 21st century.

Rev. Thomas Blantz, C.S.C.

Just released by Notre Dame Press, “The University of Notre Dame: A History,” traces the University’s path of progress — challenged at times by wars, fires, financial shortfalls and even flu and cholera pandemics — through detailed treatments of Notre Dame’s defining leaders and moments. Among those leaders are Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s 28-year-old visionary founder; Rev. William Corby, C.S.C., Notre Dame president who gave absolution to soldiers at the Battle of Gettysburg; Knute Rockne, chemistry teacher and legendary football coach who elevated the Fighting Irish to national prominence; Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., 35-year president and intrepid advocate for racial justice, human rights and international peace; and the 325 women who enrolled in 1972, creating Notre Dame’s first undergraduate coed class.

Father Blantz taught a research seminar on the history of Notre Dame for 10 years and said he benefited greatly from original research students conducted, offering views that challenged his own and pointing him to new sources for further exploration.

Reflecting on what surprised him most about this research, Father Blantz said he had not fully considered how difficult founding a school must have been in the mid-19th century.

“One historian has noted that there were approximately 250 colleges in the United States in 1860, but probably another 700 had been founded but died, and in the 16 years between 1850 and 1866, 55 Catholic colleges were founded, but by 1866, 25 of those had been abandoned,” he said. “And yet those early priests, brothers and sisters were able to make a success of Notre Dame.”

Father Blantz also emphasized that while Rev. John O'Hara, C.S.C., (later elevated to Cardinal by Pope John XXII) is remembered for his role as Prefect of Religion, he may be less known for his significant contributions to the academic development of Notre Dame as president. In particular, Cardinal O’Hara built up the graduate program and recruited several internationally known emigre scholars fleeing Nazi Germany.

What at Notre Dame has changed in 178 years, and what has remained the same?

“Under the leadership of Father Hesburgh after World War II, Notre Dame became a true university with a strong graduate program and respected scholarly research that now enjoys international recognition,” Father Blantz said. “What has remained the same or constant in Notre Dame’s history, I think, has been its striving to retain its Catholic character and mission in a predominantly secular culture, and also its concern for the moral, spiritual and religious growth of its students, exemplified by the presence of priests, religious, and dedicated laymen and women living in the student residence halls.”

National abortion study finds out-of-touch labels, knowledge gaps, appetite for moral discussion

2020-07-15T09:00:00-04:00

To read American polling statistics and social media rhetoric on abortion is to witness a nation evenly, loudly and politically divided, but new research from the University of Notre Dame finds that ordinary Americans do not actually talk much about abortion, do not fit within binary position labels, have significant knowledge gaps on the topic and — across the board — do not regard abortion in itself as a societal good.

Tricia Bruce

Sponsored by Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, “How Americans Understand Abortion” is the largest known in-depth interview study of American attitudes on abortion. Tricia Bruce, affiliate of the Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Religion and Society and adjunct research associate professor of sociology with the University of Texas at San Antonio, led a team of sociologists who asked a sample of 217 Americans what they believe about abortion, why they believe it and what factors have influenced those beliefs.

Their first finding? Americans tend not to talk about abortion, and most interviewees reported they had never been asked their opinion on the topic, nor listened to, in any in-depth way.

According to Bruce, the researchers gathered the kinds of textured data that fixed-choice polls cannot extract, deploying in-depth interviews to measure attitudinal limits, exceptions, rationales and the contexts that informed interviewees’ abortion views. “The study is distinct in approach and in sample — a cross-section of ordinary Americans — as most interview studies on abortion include only activists in social movements, people with personal experiences of abortion and affiliates of particular religious traditions,” she said.

The five-person research team found that mutually exclusive labels like “pro-choice” and “pro- life” paint an incomplete, potentially misleading, picture. According to Bruce, these labels signal beliefs that are both polarized and consistent, while most Americans hold neither polarized nor consistent beliefs toward abortion.

These tensions were particularly evident in how interviewees discussed the morality and legality of abortion.

Asked for their stance on the legality of abortion, 51 percent of interviewees said abortion should be legal under certain circumstances; 35 percent said abortion should be legal under any circumstance; and 14 percent said illegal in all circumstances. Asked about the morality of abortion, the split looked quite different: 38 percent said “it depends;” 33 percent identified as morally opposed to abortion; and 29 percent said they are not morally opposed.

The “why” of held positions was as important to this study as the positions themselves, and the researchers found that categories of influence on abortion attitudes were, in some ways, predictable: abortion experience, parenthood, facts, religion and politics. Less predictable, however, were diverging views on the role fathers should play in abortion decisions, and also the conflicts self-identifying Catholics expressed in connecting their faith with their abortion views.

“When you really ask people what forms their beliefs on abortion, they point to personal experience and relationships, not political policies and rhetoric,” Bruce said. “Also, many will admit they lack basic knowledge about gestational development, moral frameworks, the abortion laws in their state and how much an abortion costs.”

The study also offers a set of recommendations for fostering a healthier public conversation about abortion, including expanded education in science, law and moral reasoning; realizing the limits of position labels to fully express a person’s point of view; focusing on reducing the social circumstances that give rise to abortion decisions; and attending to the personal impact from which someone may be expressing their views, without immediately translating that into a political position.

“This sort of research — whatever it uncovers — is essential in our educational mission to create resource s that promote the dignity of human life from conception through natural death,” said Jessica Keating, director of Notre Dame’s Office of Human Life and Dignity. “By identifying gaps in knowledge and formation, this study helps us address those challenges more effectively.

“Another key takeaway from this study is the level of moral seriousness interviewees expressed about abortion as it belies popular rhetoric claiming abortion as a desirable good.”

Contact: Amanda Skofstad, assistant director of media relations, skofstad@nd.edu, 847-525-7492

Ramadan under quarantine will highlight public, private aspects of season

2020-04-23T12:00:00-04:00

Muslims worldwide will enter Ramadan, the most sacred month in Islam, with millions of people still under stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic. How will the month-long season — with its traditional prayer, fasting and acts of charity — be shaped by the constraints of social distancing?

Mun’im Sirry, assistant professor of theology and expert in Quranic studies, said that while most Islamic practices are communal, fasting is Ramadan’s central and most distinctive practice, and is almost entirely hidden.

Mun’im Sirry

“While fasting has a strong social component, it is also very private between the believer and God,” he said. “There is an interesting Hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: ‘God says every deed of the son of Adam is for him except fasting; it is for Me, and I will reward for it.’ Fasting is singled out, according to some scholars, because showing off is possible for most good deeds in a way that is not true for fasting."

While the fasting may be obscured from public view, Ramadan’s other activities are often shared amongst Muslims, including Tarawih prayers (night prayers performed only during the month of Ramadan) at mosques and sharing the iftar meal with friends and extended family members.

“For the Muslim world, everything changes during Ramadan,” Sirry said. “The difference between day and night is very sharp because people do very little during the day, and when night arrives, life begins: prayers, reading the Quran and enjoying the iftar, and for many this will be limited to immediate family members.”

Sirry noted that in Islamic theology, events like the coronavirus pandemic would be seen as trials and opportunities for people who are sick, and those caring for them, to be more mindful of God. He also pointed to the Quran’s emphasis on the equality and dignity of all people as a guidepost for unity in responding to the coronavirus crisis. “The Quran repeats many times that God created us all from one soul, and he created different genders, tribes, nations and races, for one purpose: for us to get to know each other,” Sirry said.

Catholic scholar of Islam Gabriel Said Reynolds studies the relationship between the Qur’an and the Bible and serves on the Vatican’s commission for Catholic-Muslim dialogue.

Sirry and Reynolds are faculty in Notre Dame’s World Religions World Church program and, together with Tzvi Novick and Francesca Murphy, co-host the Minding Scripture podcast.

Gabriel Reynolds

Reynolds said that there are already interesting questions before scholars of Islam and Imams because Friday noontime prayer, Jumu`ah prayer, is obligatory for Muslim men to perform in the mosque. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, this obligation has been waived in many places and is among the communal components of Ramadan whose absence will be sorely felt.

“There is also the socio-cultural aspect of the iftar, which is often done in large groups or with extended families or at the local mosque,” Reynolds said. “Part of the beauty of belonging to a religious community is the social support and the solidarity you feel with your brothers and sisters in the faith, so I think this loss will be significant for many Muslims.”

Reynolds noted that among the interfaith benefits of paying attention to the seasons of Islam, Christianity or Judaism are the annual opportunities for learning when neighbors and friends do things which may seem at first glance to be foreign or perhaps difficult to understand.

“As a Christian, I find there is a lot of spiritual motivation to be found in the diligence with which Muslims pursue their fast,” Reynolds said. “The Lenten fast is beautiful, but it is different, and not as rigorous as the Ramadan fast, which, like the Lenten fast, carries with it a particular emphasis on charity and concern for the poor that is expressed variously in different cultures.”

Two Arts and Letters faculty members win ACLS fellowships

2020-04-17T12:50:00-04:00

Notre Dame researchers Jon Coleman, professor of history, and Emily Wang, assistant professor of Russian, have been named fellows in the 2020 cohort of American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

ACLS fellowships honor scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, and Coleman and Wang were among 81 winners selected from nearly 1200 applicants.

“The success of our faculty in winning ACLS fellowships, among other nationally competitive research awards, is a testament to the prestige of their work and the support they receive from our Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts,” said Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.

Reimagine in Reverse

Coleman, chair of Notre Dame’s history department and expert in American environmental history, will use his year-long fellowship from ACLS to advance his research on the Kankakee River in Illinois and northern Indiana. This will include traveling to archives and writing a history of the river in reverse chronology.

“The Kankakee River was once a sluggish, magnificent engine of biodiversity, but in the early twentieth century, the river’s marshlands were dredged and destroyed,” Colman writes in his project’s abstract. “The soggy splendor of 500,000 wetland acres was no match for reclamation, and according to reclamation’s logic, the Kankakee destroyed resources rather than sustained them. By taming the river, farmland would be freed from the floods and mud would become real estate.”

Coleman refers to this line of thinking as the “gospel of unmaking” and argues that the best way to counter this unholy conceptual narrative is to push back on the current of time.

He said the biggest challenge — and most distinctive feature — of this research is its reverse chronology, but that approaching the project this way will enable readers to imagine what the marshlands were like before history overwhelmed them. Coleman’s inspiration for this approach came from a scene in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five where a time-traveling character who survived the Dresden firebombing watches a World War II film about American bombers. Since the character is drifting in time, the film runs backwards for him.

“Environmental historians usually explain how ecosystems are disturbed or destroyed by economic development,” Coleman said. “Viewed backwards, resources travel back to their points of origin, and this rewind conjures value. We may not be able to put history back into the tube, but we can use literary imagination to see value in environments that have yet to be squeezed.”

Poetry of Identity

Wang’s research focuses on Russian poetry of the 18th and 19th centuries, in particular the role poetry played in helping Russians understand the world (and themselves) intellectually and emotionally. Her ACLS fellowship will support her project showing how literature shaped the Decembrists, a group of liberal young Russian conspirators who staged a revolt against Tsar Nicholas I in 1825.

Wang introduces the concept of ‘civic sentimentalism,’ or the conviction that cultivating civic sentiments also produces civic virtue, which developed from literary models of emotion. She also unpacks how the Decembrists understood Lord Byron and Alexander Pushkin according to its terms — often to the dismay of Pushkin himself.

“While the Decembrists’ attempt to give Russia a constitutional government ultimately failed, their potent emotional ideal helped Pushkin develop his later conservative politics and his most mature works,” Wang writes in her abstract. “Also, civic sentimentalism found a surprising successor in Leo Tolstoy.”

While the Decembrists were studied extensively in the Soviet Union, Wang pointed out that scholars were limited by the party line on the topic, and one’s career could be destroyed for pointing out that Pushkin — a friend of many Decembrists and an outspoken liberal in his youth, — ended up a fairly conservative thinker with aristocratic leanings.

She said that while the Decembrists were considered heroic in the Soviet era, their reputation has changed over time. One 2019 film depicted them as foolish children, which many regarded as a comment on recent opposition political activity. “Just like in the Soviet Union, official portrayals of this period tell us more about the political vision of those in power than about the past,” Wang said.

Wang noted that the ACLS fellowship would allow her not only to finish her book, but also to add a section on Tolstoy for a wider audience. “It's a huge honor to be selected, and I am grateful for Notre Dame’s support for humanities scholars at the beginning of their careers when so much depends on research leave opportunities,” she said.

Kathleen McChesney, law enforcement trailblazer and victim advocate, to receive 2020 Laetare Medal

2020-03-22T10:00:00-04:00

Kathleen McChesney, former FBI executive assistant director and a leading expert in addressing the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse and coverup crisis, will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2020 Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics, at Notre Dame’s 175th University Commencement Ceremony.

“It is often the Church’s darkest moments that call forth great faith and courage,” said Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “In awarding Dr. McChesney the Laetare Medal, we recognize her courage, tenacity and love for the Church in a tireless pursuit of justice for victims, accountability for abusers and measures that prevent this crisis from continuing. Her example reminds us of Jesus’ words, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.’”

McChesney’s myriad law enforcement achievements began in the 1970s as a police officer in King County, Washington. As a detective, she investigated sex crimes and homicides, including the case involving the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. McChesney joined the FBI in 1978 as a special agent, eventually reaching the third-highest position within the bureau as executive assistant director for law enforcement services.

In 2002, McChesney was recruited by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to establish and lead its Office of Child Protection, where she helped the nation’s 195 dioceses and eparchies implement the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.” She established protocols for responses to allegations of abuse, prevention of abuse, transparency and accountability. Over the course of three years, McChesney also worked with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to develop an unprecedented study of sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church, which was released in 2004. She is the founder of Kinsale Management Consulting, through which she continues to serve dioceses, religious organizations, and others around the world in the protection of children and vulnerable adults and in preventing ministerial misconduct and abuse.

Throughout her work with the Catholic Church, McChesney has emphasized the necessity of listening to victim-survivors, independent and professional investigations of abuse, transparency regarding cases of abuse and offenders, and thorough screening for clergy and laypeople involved in Catholic ministries. In Sept. 2019, McChesney spoke on some of these themes as a guest panelist in “The Church Crisis: Where Are We Now?’, which launched the 2019-2020 Notre Dame Forum, “Rebuild My Church: Crisis and Response.”

Upon learning she had been named the 2020 Laetare Medalist, McChesney said: “I think there is a significant responsibility with such an honor that one has to live up to every day forward. The Laetare Medal will inspire me to work harder, more effectively and with greater compassion on behalf of those who have been wounded by persons in Catholic ministries.”

A native of the greater Seattle area, McChesney grew up in a Catholic family of Irish-Italian heritage. She pointed to a Jesuit education and the Dominican sisters leading her catechism class as central to her early faith formation. “The sisters were very influential in terms of showing me what Catholic ministry was all about,” she said.

McChesney attended Gonzaga University for two years before completing her undergraduate work at Washington State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in police science and administration. She also earned a master’s degree in public service from Seattle University and a doctorate in public administration from Golden Gate University. McChesney is the co-author of “Pick Up Your Own Brass: Leadership the FBI Way” and the co-editor of “Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: A Decade of Crisis, 2002–2012.”

McChesney also will receive an honorary degree at the commencement ceremony.

In a March 18 statement to the campus community, Father Jenkins said that the University still plans to hold its 175^th Commencement Exercises on May 17 but that a final determination would be made in coming weeks in collaboration with academic and student leaders.

Pope Francis appoints Notre Dame theologian to commission for Catholic-Muslim dialogue

2020-02-28T10:00:00-05:00

Gabriel Said Reynolds, professor of Islamic studies and theology at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed by Pope Francis as consultor to the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, which is part of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID). The appointment lasts five years, and the commission meets annually in Rome to debrief and advise on the Church’s relations with Muslims.

“I am humbled by the invitation to this commission, which seeks to advance theological understanding and deepen friendships with Muslim believers,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds is an expert in the common themes and content between the Quran and the Bible, as well as the ideas of divine mercy and divine judgment in the Quran. His service in Catholic-Muslim dialogue includes being selected by the Vatican in 2017 to participate in bilateral conversations with 15 Muslim counterparts at Al-Azhar University in preparation for Pope Francis’ historic apostolic visit to Cairo. In 2019, Pope Francis also met with religious leaders in Abu Dhabi at a gathering meant to confront religious extremism and promote peace; this visit marked the first time a pope has visited the Arabian Peninsula.

“In the Vatican II documents Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate, the Church emphasizes common bonds with Islam,” Reynolds said. “Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have all reached out in friendship to Muslims and visited the Islamic world.”

Reynolds was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 2016, and in 2018 he published The Quran and the Bible, which offers a complete translation of the Quran along with Reynolds’ analysis of its relationship to the Bible. Reynolds coordinates the World Religions World Church program in Notre Dame’s Department of Theology.

Notre Dame expert to speak at 2020 Doomsday Clock announcement

2020-01-22T10:00:00-05:00

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Latiff, adjunct professor in the University of Notre Dame’s Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values and fellow of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, will speak at the 2020 Doomsday Clock announcement at 10 a.m. EST Thursday, Jan. 23. Latiff, a member of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ science and security board, will join a panel of experts that includes Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Ban Ki-moon, former UN secretary-general.

The Doomsday Clock’s time is announced annually by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to warn and educate the public about how close humans are to destroying the world with dangerous technologies and through human-caused climate change. In 2019, the Doomsday Clock hands remained set to two minutes from midnight, which is as close to the symbolic point of annihilation that the clock has been since the height of the Cold War.

Latiff is an expert on the ethical uses of military technology — both weapons and surveillance — and he serves as a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. His current research focuses on the implications of artificial intelligence and autonomy on military command and control, and the potential for inadvertent war. Latiff also studies the ways concerned citizens and public officials can influence decisions to resort to armed conflict, particularly in light of instant communications and the many forces pushing for military engagement.

“We are living in a period of great uncertainty caused by both technology and failures of leadership. It is urgent that we collectively work to reduce the instability that causes,” said Latiff. “I am honored to be included in the important work of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, adding my voice to that of the respected world leaders on the panel.”

The 2020 Doomsday Clock announcement will be streamed live at thebulletin.org.

Father Gary Chamberland to lead Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason in Dublin

2020-01-16T08:00:00-05:00

Rev. Gary Chamberland, C.S.C., current director of residence life for recruitment, hiring and retention at the University of Notre Dame, has been named the new director of the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason, the historic Dublin church founded in 1856 by St. John Henry Newman. He will assume his new duties in July.

The center’s current director, Rev. William Dailey, C.S.C., will return to the United States to work on a book about faith and reason — partially inspired by his work in Dublin — while beginning a new pastoral assignment.

Ordained a Holy Cross priest in 1998, Father Chamberland holds a license in canon law from the Catholic University of America. His extensive higher education leadership experience includes oversight of Notre Dame’s residence hall rectors and service as the pastoral resident for Morrissey Hall. Father Chamberland also served as the director of Notre Dame’s Master of Divinity program, where he helped implement parallel three- and four-year academic programs for lay and priestly formation. He also initiated a faculty review of the master of divinity curriculum by subject area.

From 2009 to 2014, Father Chamberland served at the University of Portland, which, like Notre Dame, is a Congregation of Holy Cross university, as director of campus ministry. He concurrently served as the executive director of the Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life and American Culture from 2012 to 2013. While at Portland, Father Chamberland served as a member of the President’s Leadership Cabinet.

“Father Chamberland brings a wealth of pastoral, academic and administrative experience to his new role,” said Rev. Gerard Olinger, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s vice president for mission engagement and Church affairs. “We remain grateful to Archbishop (Diarmuid) Martin for his invitation to minister in Dublin, and I am confident that under Father Chamberland’s leadership, the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason will deepen its mission to invite young professionals in the heart of Dublin toward deeper engagement with the Catholic faith and service to the world.”

Father Chamberland added, “I am excited to minister in the Archdiocese of Dublin and look forward to serving at St. John Newman’s home church in Ireland. I hope that I can help people, especially young adults, deepen a sense of the sacred in their lives and encounter a Church with important and meaningful things to say about the pressing issues of our day.”

In 2016, at the invitation of the Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, Notre Dame agreed to steward the Newman University Church and to found there the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason. The center honors the legacy of St. John Henry Newman by inviting reflection on the harmony of faith and reason.