(LifeSiteNews) — A former Planned Parenthood executive who now heads a United Nations (UN) “corporate sustainability initiative” was featured as part of the recent festivities surrounding the inauguration of the University of Notre Dame’s new president, Fr. Robert Dowd, C.S.C.
Sanda Ojiambo’s live-streamed interview before a large audience was conducted by NBC’s Ann Thompson, a Notre Dame graduate who serves on the school’s Board of Trustees.
In a glowing introduction of Ojiambo, Thompson failed to mention Ojiambo’s past association with Planned Parenthood, saying only, “She embarked on a career working in both the public and private sector for some two decades.”
Promoting so-called ‘reproductive health’ to the youth of Africa
Ojiambo’s LinkedIn resume shows that she worked for Planned Parenthood for nearly seven years, beginning as a senior program officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America – International before becoming director of programs for International Planned Parenthood Federation – Africa Regional Office.
From 2002 to 2004, Ojiambo ran “reproductive health Programmes in selected African countries, with a focus on youth and advocacy,” adding that she “oversaw Programmes in 13 sub Saharan African countries and developed and ran a youth advocacy network.”
From 2004 to 2008, she then “headed the Programmes Department providing strategic leadership and technical assistance for the delivery of a wide range of reproductive health services in over 40 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.”
In that capacity, she served as “a strong advocate for reproductive rights.”
David Rockefeller Jr., the former chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, was also a featured speaker. The Rockefeller Foundation is a major abortion initiatives funder.
Is Notre Dame still a Catholic school?
Notre Dame has long struggled to maintain its Catholic identity.
Over the past few decades, the university has chosen to bestow prestigious honors on Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Democrat politicians who while serving in the White House have embraced practices viewed as serious evils — in direct opposition to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church — including abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism.
In 2020, Notre Dame announced the hiring of Pete Buttigieg, a pro-abortion homosexual who is “married” to another man, as a 2020-2021 faculty fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS). Buttigieg had previously refused to condemn infanticide and late-term abortion.
In the lead up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Notre Dame professors published opinions advocating for abortion rights in the national media, going so far as to assert that prohibiting abortion would constitute “violence against women,” “irreparable harm,” and “traumatic sexual abuse.”
Other Notre Dame violations of Catholic principles include participation in LGBT “pride” month, mandating COVID-19 vaccines despite their use of fetal cells from aborted babies, and insuring abortifacient birth-control methods.
Will Notre Dame’s Catholic identity be restored?
“Will Fr. Dowd continue his predecessor’s legacy of growing the university’s global reputation and emphasizing dialogue, even if the cost is controversy and questions over Catholic identity?” The Pillar’s Michelle La Rose asked after Ojiambo’s appearance at Notre Dame.
“If Dowd were interested in making a clear statement on the prioritization of Catholic identity at the university, one way to do so would be to insist that the featured speakers not have a history of working at an organization as antithetical to the Catholic Church as Planned Parenthood,” La Rosa noted.
“The incoming president has passed up what was perhaps his first possible opportunity to show that he wants to steer the ship of Notre Dame in a new direction,” wrote La Rosa, adding, “Those hoping for significant changes at Notre Dame probably shouldn’t be holding their breath.”