Notre Dame de Namur University in California is celebrating Nancy Pelosi for her ‘courage’ and ‘perseverance,’ but her record includes decades of support for grave affronts to the Catholic faith. This article looks at what that praise means for a Catholic institution, why many see a clash between words and actions, and why the school’s identity will be tested by this choice.
When a Catholic college elevates a political figure like Nancy Pelosi, it sends a message about values and priorities. Calling her display of public service “courage” and “perseverance” begs the question of which values are being celebrated. For alumni and parents who expect a clear Catholic mission, this feels like a mismatch between doctrine and ceremony.
Pelosi’s long public record includes consistent backing for expanded abortion access and support for policies that conflict with traditional Catholic teaching. Republicans and many faithful see this as more than political disagreement. It’s a sustained pattern that raises real concerns about whether the university is honoring the faith it claims to represent.
An institution that bills itself as Catholic faces unique responsibilities to students, donors, and the local church. That responsibility includes upholding teachings that define Catholic identity, especially on life and family issues. Inviting a prominent supporter of those opposing policies puts the university’s commitments on public display and invites scrutiny from bishops and the faithful.
Students deserve clarity about the values their school will model during commencement rites and other public ceremonies. A commencement address is more than a speech; it is a formal blessing and example set before graduates stepping into public life. When a commencement speaker’s positions clash with core church teachings, some students and families will feel alienated, not affirmed.
Trustees and administrators must answer how this choice aligns with the mission statement they promote. Is the goal to showcase civic engagement at any cost, or to celebrate public service that resonates with Catholic moral teaching? These are not academic questions, they are practical decisions that affect fundraising, enrollment, and community trust.
Faithful Catholics look to their bishops for guidance when Catholic identity is at stake. Diocesan leaders often weigh in on campus choices that touch the sacraments and moral teaching. A clear institutional defense of Catholic doctrine would head off confusion; silence or vague justifications only deepen concern among those who give to and support the school precisely because it is Catholic.
There’s also a practical angle: donors and prospective students make choices based on perceived fidelity to faith. If a university signals tolerance for public positions that contradict Catholic teaching, it risks losing vital support. That’s not just ideology; it’s a real effect on the institution’s sustainability and reputation in religious communities.
Open debate is healthy on college campuses, and invited speakers should be welcome to present their views. But the difference here is the symbol being elevated during a sacred rite for graduates. Commencement is not a neutral forum; it is a culminating moment where the institution’s priorities are revealed. That makes the choice of speaker especially consequential.
Those who run Catholic colleges can respect differing opinions without endorsing positions that undermine foundational beliefs. A clear, honest conversation with students, faculty, alumni, and church leaders would be a constructive first step. If the university truly values its Catholic identity, it must act in ways that reflect it, not create the appearance of compromise.
Critics of the invitation are asking for accountability, not cancel culture. They want the university to match actions to its stated faith commitments and to recognize that celebrating a political figure with a record at odds with church teaching is, for many, deeply troubling. The coming weeks will show whether Notre Dame de Namur listens to those concerns or doubles down on a disputed choice.
1 Comment
What an EVIL and most VILE Hypocrisy by an Institution of so called Higher Learning that states it promotes Catholicism, to put this disgusting wicked woman on a pedestal, and I say this is the action of the Evil Freemasons and Globalist Cabal that have infiltrated the Catholic Church and Vatican! Bergoglio was and like now Prevost is; heretics and outright blasphemers of the Catholic Church! I’m stating that anyone that says otherwise needs to have their head examined by the best psychiatrists and perhaps even an exorcist!
This is so bad on many levels and a absolute Sign of the Times! Read what a great and wise leader of the church wrote about this very time we’re now witnessing!
Fulton Sheen in 1948: “Satan will set up Counter-Church”
Mgr. Fulton J. Sheen
Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948)
“[Satan] will set up a counter-church which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church. . . . It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.”
The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as “I am Who am,” and the Devil as “I am who am not.”
Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as “the Prince of this world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect — and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?
The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .
. . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion — one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.
In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter-church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. . . .
. . . But the twentieth century will join the counter-church because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism.
Source: Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merril Company, 1948), pp. 22-25.
This is it folks, we’re living in the prophesied times of the Scriptures and relatively speaking the Return of Jesus Christ being imminent!
Look around and see how twisted and screwed up the human race has become and then can you say I’m totally wrong? And the Catholic Church is the Barometer by which we can gauge this collapse of civilization before out very eyes; can we deny now what evil was in play to put the whole planet into a lock-down for a plan-demic; and Bergoglio was fully behind that Sacrifice we know from his own utterances and actions! And Millions of Human Lives were Sacrificed for that evil!
God help us in Jesus’ Holy Name!
Amen.
Brother in-Christ Jesus-Lawrence