David Solomon, Longtime Champion of Catholic Identity at Notre Dame, Passes Away Months After Converting| National Catholic Register

David Solomon, a longtime champion for Catholic identity and the harmony of faith and reason at the University of Notre Dame, passed away yesterday, just months after the legendary philosopher himself had entered the Catholic Church.

Solomon, who founded what is now the deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture (dCEC) in 1999 and became Catholic last May after nearly a lifetime as a Southern Baptist, was 81 years old, according to a statement from the dCEC.

Reacting to her predecessor’s passing, Jennifer Newsome Martin, the current director of the dCEC, said “it is difficult to overstate the impact” of Solomon’s legacy at Notre Dame.

“His entire life was a cheerful testament not only to the pursuit of knowledge but also wisdom and virtue,” said Martin. “Those of us who hold dear the lively witness of the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition at Notre Dame — and beyond — remain ever in his debt.”

Carter Snead, a Notre Dame Law School faculty member who led the dCEC from 2012 to 2024, described Solomon as “a genuine giant, mentor, and our beloved friend.”

A specialist in virtue ethics, Solomon established the now-dCEC as a center for applying the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition to contemporary ethical challenges. During the Texas native’s 13 years at the helm of the institution, he established many of the dCEC’s most impactful and enduring initiatives, such as its annual Fall Conference, the Vita Institute for pro-life leadership and the Evangelium Vitae medal.

Notre Dame theologian Michael Baxter said Solomon helped create an “institutional home” at the university for scholars to reflect on the confluence of important intellectual trends within the Church, such as St. John Paul II’s teaching on morality and life, the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre and the insights of communio theologians like Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Urs Von Balthasar.

“These trends were alive at Notre Dame, but only in a marginal way,” he told the Register. “David brought them together and gave a context for working them out and discussing them that was hospitable, rigorous, broad minded, and humorous.”

A Champion of Catholic Identity

Solomon’s leadership of the dCEC was just one of several ways that the philosopher contributed to Notre Dame’s Catholic identity and mission, even as a Protestant.

He also served as the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Philosophy, where he taught for nearly 50 years before retiring in 2016. The philosopher taught entry level ethics, while his “Morality and Modernity” course, which was based on Notre Dame philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s pivotal work, After Virtue, was legendary across campus.

Additionally, the academic wasn’t afraid to weigh in on public controversies regarding Notre Dame’s Catholicity. In 2010, he issued a searing criticism of Notre Dame’s administration for firing Bill Kirk, linking the sudden removal of the longtime student life administrator to his public opposition to the university’s 2009 decision to honor pro-abortion rights President Barack Obama.

Solomon was also an important advocate of the Sycamore Trust, an alumni group devoted to promoting Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, the groups’ founder told the Register.

“From the start, he was an unfailing guide in our examination of the Catholic character of this school that he so dearly loved, and he responded always to our requests to speak at one of our programs with illuminating accounts of what was happening bearing on the school’s Catholic identity,” said Bill Dempsey.

Dempsey added that Solomon was “one of the most consequential figures at the University of Notre Dame in recent decades.”

A Revered Teacher

Solomon advanced Notre Dame’s Catholic mission as an administrator and advocate. But the philosopher arguably made his greatest impact in the classroom, where his intelligence, humor and encouragement affected generations of students, including several leading lights in American Catholicism.

Many of them took to social media after Solomon’s death to share how he had impacted them.

March for Life president Jennie Bradley Lichter, who worked at the dCEC as an undergraduate and studied virtue ethics with Solomon, described him as “my beloved former boss, my most important teacher, and my dear friend.”

Ryan Anderson, the president of the Ethics in Public Policy Center, said Solomon “taught one of the best seminars I took in grad school,” and described his former professor as “wonderful and warm.”

And Charles Camosy, a noted bioethicist and moral theologian, spoke fondly of the support he received from Solomon, who served as a member of his dissertation committee.

“I’m just one of thousands of people who owe Professor Solomon so very much,” said Camosy.

Notre Dame historian and Holy Cross Father Bill Miscamble suggested that it was Solomon’s example of a life well lived that was perhaps his greatest contribution to the university.

“David Solomon had a true gift for friendship and he drew people to him because of his enormous generosity and goodness,” said Father Miscamble, who received Solomon and his wife Lou into the Church last year and penned a lengthy tribute to him in 2016. “This virtuous Christian man provided valuable lessons to all he met, not only through his formal teaching, but through how he lived.”

Coming Home

The dCEC’s Martin has previously referred to the transcendentals — goodness, truth, and beauty — to describe the distinctive approaches of the center’s three directors. While she spoke of her affinity for beauty and Snead’s for goodness, she said Solomon had a unique correspondence with the truth.

That affinity animated the philosopher throughout his life, and crescendoed in his final year with his entry into the Catholic Church.

“His conversion is a culmination of a life of study, a consolation to his many friends, and an intensification of the union with his wonderful wife,” wrote the philosopher Christopher Kaczor, a former student, at the time of Solomon’s conversion.

A Mass was celebrated for the repose of Solomon’s soul Wednesday night by Holy Cross Father Bill Dailey, a Notre Dame law professor and another former student. His funeral Mass will be celebrated in Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Friday, March 7.

Gerry Bradley, a now retired Notre Dame law professor, noted that even though Solomon was not Catholic during his academic career he was “a positive force for Notre Dame’s Catholic character far greater than 90% of faculty who said they were Catholic.”

Nonetheless, Bradley, like thousands of other Catholics who benefited from the friendship and wisdom of the once-Protestant philosopher, expressed his gratitude that Solomon’s lifelong pursuit of truth brought him to Catholicism before his death.

“David died with Catholic faith and in the arms of the Catholic Church,” he noted.

National Catholic Register