CV NEWS FEED // Katie Conboy, president of Saint Mary’s College, a Catholic women’s college in Indiana, is defending the school’s decision to honor former Irish president Mary McAleese, despite backlash over McAleese’s public opposition to key Catholic teachings.
McAleese, who has criticized Church doctrine on abortion, same-sex unions, and women’s ordination, is set to deliver the 2025 commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate from the college.
The announcement sparked concern among students, alumni, and faithful Catholics who question whether Saint Mary’s can maintain its Catholic identity while publicly honoring a figure so closely associated with dissent from Church teaching.
In her letter for The Observer, Conboy asserted that McAleese “is not pro-abortion,” and describes her 2018 vote to repeal Ireland’s constitutional protection for the unborn as merely allowing legislators to “regulate” abortion — not a vote in favor of abortion itself.
The vote, Conboy said, “did not involve voting for expanding abortion access, but rather involved voting yes to the statement: ‘Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy.’”
However, according to Eriugena Review, Conboy’s framing overlooks McAleese’s public stance at the time. She had said that she had “no hesitation” in voting for repeal, and dismissed the idea of going to confession afterward, despite Irish Bishop Kevin Doran’s call for those who supported the referendum to seek the sacrament of reconciliation.
“[T]hese are man-made rules…not statements of an infallible Church,” she said at the time.
In her letter, Conboy also emphasized McAleese’s academic work, stating that she “used her time after the presidency to earn both her licentiate and her Doctor of Canon Law degrees from Pontifical Gregorian University, focusing her thesis on children’s rights and obligations in canon law.”
McAleese has previously drawn sharp criticism for comments on infant baptism. In a 2018 interview, she described the practice as a form of “infant conscription,” claiming that it imposed lifelong obligations on children before they could meaningfully consent to the faith.
Critics note that McAleese’s achievements do not erase her long-standing public opposition to core aspects of Catholic teaching, including her advocacy for women’s ordination and same-sex marriage, as well as her repeated criticism of St. John Paul II as an “ultra conservative pope.”
Conboy defended McAleese’s engagement with these controversial issues, characterizing McAleese’s long-standing views on LGBTQ rights and women’s ordination as topics that, while controversial, have been part of open dialogue within the Church.
“Church teaching continues to evolve: while the Catholic Church clearly forbids same-sex marriages, Pope Francis has voiced his support for civil unions since 2020, and … formally approved ‘spontaneous blessings’ by priests and deacons for same-sex civil unions,” Conboy wrote. “The Synod on Synodality made room for discussion of a women’s diaconate, and Pope Francis created a commission to study it. It is not a closed topic.”
According to Conboy, McAleese’s commencement address will focus on her personal story of growing up amid sectarian violence in Belfast.
“She has told me that she will focus on the heart of her life story: how, confronted with violent sectarianism on her doorstep, she committed to the great commandment to love one another — and to mean it,” Conboy wrote.
“She will also receive an honorary doctor of laws,” she concluded, “which we will be proud to confer.”
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