Mary Rice Hasson
Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow
Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., is the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she co-founded and directs the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that educates and equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth about the human person and counter gender ideology. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a three-time keynote speaker for the Holy See at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, on topics related to women, education, and gender ideology. She serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family, Life and Youth. Recently, Mary was honored to receive the Christifideles Laici award at the 2023 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., is the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she co-founded and directs the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that educates and equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth about the human person and counter gender ideology. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a three-time keynote speaker for the Holy See at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, on topics related to women, education, and gender ideology. She serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family, Life and Youth. Recently, Mary was honored to receive the Christifideles Laici award at the 2023 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
She speaks frequently at national conferences, universities, and in dioceses across the country, and has testified before the U.S. Senate, in state legislatures, and the Australian parliament on parents’ rights and transgender issues.
The co-author of several books on education, Mary’s writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, National Review, First Things, the National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor, among others.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Notre Dame Law School, Mary is married to Seamus Hasson, and they are parents of seven grown children and grandparents of four.
A note about the Person and Identity Project (PIP): The Person and Identity Project aims to equip parents and faith-based institutions with the facts, resources, and expertise to promote an authentic vision of the human person and to counter gender ideology. PIP experts speak, write, and conduct workshops on gender ideology for churches, schools, parents, and faith-based organizations. See personandidentity.com
A note about the Catholic Women’s Forum: The Catholic Women’s Forum takes its inspiration from Pope St. John Paul II, who wrote that women have “the task of assuring the moral dimension of culture…a culture worthy of the person,” (Christifideles Laici, 51). The Catholic Women’s Forum provides a network for Catholic women scholars seeking fellowship and to influence the culture, and offers a forum for Catholic women to share faith, inspiration, and resources. See catholicwomensforum.org.
Recent publications:
Appellate brief in the 9th Circuit supporting challenge to Washington law effectively mandating “affirmation only” therapy for minors, December 16, 2021.
“Bringing the Christ of Christmas to a Lost Generation,” Legatus Magazine, Dec 1, 2021
“Erasing Females in Language and Law,” Journal of Christian Legal Thought, Christian Legal Society, Oct. 21, 2021.
“Is It Emotional Abuse For Parents To Deny A Child’s Transgender Claims?” National Review Online, October 17, 2021.
“Time for an Exodus from Public Schools?” Our Catholic Mission, Cardinal Newman Society, October 8, 2021.
“The Equality Act and the End of Females,” Newsweek, February 24, 2021.
“The Pope is Catholic After All,” co-author with Tim Busch, The Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2020.
Books and Book Chapters:
Chapter author, “Sexual Identity, Gender Ideology, and Religious Freedom: The Tug of War over ‘Who We Are,’ – Schools as Battlegrounds,” in the Handbook of Church and State, Shannon Holzer, ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave, expected publication fall 2022)
Co-author, with Theresa Farnan, PhD, of Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child From Public School Before It’s Too Late (Regnery: 2018)
Chapter author, “What About Sex: Habits of Heart for a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship and a Happy Marriage,” in Venus and Virtue: Celebrating Sex and Seeking Sanctification (2018).
Editor, Promise and Challenge: Catholic Women Reflect on Feminism, Complementarity, and the Church (Our Sunday Visitor: 2015)
Co-author, with Michele Hill, of the report, What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception (EPPC 2012)
Co-author, with Kimberly Hahn of Catholic Education: Homeward Bound (Ignatius Press: 1996).
Selected Presentations and Interviews:
[See also the videos collected on the Person and Identity Project website]
- “How to Talk to Your Kids About Trans Issues,” presentation for school parents, Nov. 10, 2021
- “When Gender Identity Wins, Females Lose,” EDIFY video, Sept. 30, 2021.
- “Family Structure, Values and Foundation,” Center for Urban Renewal and Education’s 2021 National Policy Summit, September 2021
- “The Transgender Revolution in the Classroom,” WEBINAR, EPPC, September 22, 2021.
- “Religious Liberty,” Franciscan University Presents, Conversation with Fr. Dave Pivonka, Scott Hahn, and Dr. Regis Martin, July 2, 2021.
- “Transgender and Gender Identity: Risks and Truth, Searching for More, Diocese of Arlington VA, June 23, 2021.
- “The Ethical Implications of Redefining Sex,” EWTN In Depth, June 18, 2021.
- “Gender Ideology and the Equality Act,” WEBINAR, Catholic Information Center, Washington DC, March 31, 2021
- “The Equality Act and What It Means for Catholics,” WEBINAR, Diocese of Arlington, March 22, 2021.
- “Why Catholic Education?” St. Michael’s Academy of Petosky (MI) Speaker Series, March 19, 2020
- “Defending the Human Person in the Face of Gender Ideology,” Bringing America Back to Life, Cleveland Right to Life Convention, March 18, 2021.
- “Gender Ideology,” Interview with Fran Maier, Napa Institute, March 18, 2021.
- “The Equality Act,” The World Over with Raymond Arroyo, EWTN, March 18, 2021.
- “Attorney Mary Hasson rips Equality Act,” Forbes, March 17, 2021. Testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the Equality Act.
- “Transgenderism,” Catholic Answers Live (hour 1), March 1, 2021.
- “Faith in the Time of COVID,” Archdiocese of St. Andrews & Edinburgh, February 8, 2021.
- “Gender Ideology,” The World Over with Raymond Arroyo, EWTN, February 18, 2021.
- “JK Rowling and the Meaning of Womanhood,” Napa Institute, February 5, 2021.
- “The Supreme Court, Civil Rights, and Transgenderism,” American Public Philosophy Institute, Nov. 9, 2020.
- “Public Education,” Interview, Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, August 6, 2020.
- “The Dangers of Gender Ideology,” Interview, the Catholic Association, February 14, 2020.
- “Sexual Consent and Our Current Throwaway Culture,” Love and Fidelity Network Conference, Princeton University, November 8, 2019.
- “Shaping Conversations in the Church and Culture,” GIVEN Institute, Oct. 31, 2019.
- “The Transgender Moment,” Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life, Franciscan University of Steubenville, September 2019.
- “Religious Liberty for All,” Sutherland Institute Congressional Series, August 2019.
- “Gender Clarity, Please!” St. Dominic Church, Faith and Sexuality Series, Washington DC, July 30, 2019.
- “Should We Stay or Should We Go?” Parents’ Rights in Education, Lake Oswego, OR, May 2019.
- “Truth, Conscience, and Love in a Post- Christian Culture,” Napa Institute/EWTN, March 8, 2019.
- “Gender Ideology: Ideological Aggression Against Women and Girls,” UN Commission on the Status of Women, March 2019.
- “Valuing Unpaid Caregiving: The Human Dimension,” UN Commission on the Status of Women, March 2019.
- “Alive in Christ,” Catholic Women’s Commission 2019 Day of Reflection, Archdiocese of Newark, March 27, 2019.
- “The Gender Revolution,” Catholic Women’s Commission 2019 Day of Reflection, Archdiocese of Newark, March 27, 2019.
- “Truth, Conscience and Love in a Post-Christian Culture,” 2018 NAPA Institute Conference.
- Interview about Get Out Now (alongside Theresa Farnan), The Eric Metaxas Show, October 2018
- “Should Pope Francis Resign?“, TRT World, September 2018.
- Comments on the McCarrick scandal: “Spiritual Reform Is the Answer”, EWTN News Nightly with Laura Ashburn, July 2018.
- Transgenderism & Child Welfare, World Lutheran News Digest, June 2017 (begins at 5 min. mark).
- Birth Mothers and Adoptive Mothers Celebrate Mother’s Day, EWTN “Pro-Life Weekly,” May 2017.
- “The Distinctiveness of Women’s Work and Women’s Empowerment”, Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations, March 2017.
- Redeeming the Gender Revolution, Genuine Feminine Conference, January 31, 2017.
- “Women and the Church: An Inter-Tradition Dialogue – Is Christianity Bad for Women?” panel discussion, University of Notre Dame, September 2016.
- Interview about Promise and Challenge, Salt and Light TV’s “Subject Matters,” June 2016.
- Interview during Pope Francis’s visit to US, CSPAN, October 2015.
- Keynote Remarks of the 2015 Saint John Paul II Award for the New Evangelization, Catholic Information Center, October 2015.
‘Choosing’ Gender Ignores Truth of Human Person
Mary Rice Hasson
Target’s bathroom policy stems from a gender ideology that is ultimately incompatible not only with reality, but also with Christian anthropology.
Articles
Our Sunday Visitor / April 27, 2016
Remarks Upon Acceptance of John Paul II New Evangelization Award
Mary Rice Hasson
EPPC Fellow Mary Rice Hasson and her husband, Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, received the 2015 Saint John Paul II Award for the New Evangelization from the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Articles
Catholic Information Center / October 30, 2015
Catholic Education: Antidote to ‘Ideological Colonization’ in America
Mary Rice Hasson
It should trouble us that public schools, which are heavily invested in promoting a warped view of sexuality and a deformed view of the person and human freedom, direct the social, intellectual and, at times, moral formation of our children.
Articles
Catholic Education Daily / October 22, 2015
Missing Pieces
Mary Rice Hasson
In the essay “Missing Pieces,” published in First Things as part of the “Letters from the Synod” collection, Mary Rice Hasson, the the Director of EPPC’s Catholic Women’s Forum, and Prof. Theresa Farnan of Franciscan University, analyze fundamental deficiencies in the working document of the Bishops’ Synod on the Family.
Articles
Letters from the Synod / October 15, 2015
Letter to Synod Fathers from Catholic Women
Mary Rice Hasson
The “Letter to the Synod Fathers from Catholic Women,” coordinated by the Catholic Women’s Forum, brings to the public square the much-needed voice of Catholic women who support the Church’s teachings on sexuality, marriage, and family.
Articles
Catholic Women's Forum / October 1, 2015
EXCLUSIVE: Feds Paid Baby Organ-Harvesting Doc For Advice On ‘Healthy Baby’ Births
Mary Rice Hasson
Leave it to the Obama administration to tap an abortionist–the infamous Dr. Deborah Nucatola–for ‘expert’ advice on ensuring that children are ‘born healthy.’ The real question is: how much are we, the American taxpayers, paying Dr. Nucatola for her ‘expert’ opinion?
Articles
The Federalist / July 20, 2015
The Supreme Court Has Legalized Same-Sex Marriage: Now What?
Mary Rice Hasson
Religious liberty — and even the common understanding of the “nature of things” — is on shaky ground after Obergefell.
Articles
National Review Online / June 30, 2015
Catholic Women Speak Out
Mary Rice Hasson
A conversation about a new book of essays by Catholic women and the need for complementarity and collaboration between men and women in the Church and society today.
Articles
National Review Online / May 12, 2015
Commitment, Chastity, Mercy are the Building Blocks for a Happy Marriage
Mary Rice Hasson
Marriage looks risky to young couples, so finding the success factor matters a lot.
Articles
Our Sunday Visitor / February 11, 2015
As Marriage Culture Collapses, Liberals Want to Sterilize Poor and Minority Women
Mary Rice Hasson
The collapse of marriage — combined with high rates of unwed birth — has given liberals an opening to push long-term, “temporary” sterilization as the “default” approach for low- and middle-income young women and minorities.
Articles
Aleteia / November 5, 2014
The Culture Wars – Have We Lost?
Mary Rice Hasson
The New York Times says it’s over: we’ve lost and they’ve won. But the statistics attesting to their culture war victory tell of brokenness and ruin–of ‘victory’ at odds with the human person’s deepest longings for what’s good, true, and beautiful.
Articles
Aleteia / October 15, 2014
Back to School: When Mr. Reuter Becomes ‘Ms. Reuter’
Mary Rice Hasson
What happens when a teacher ‘transitions’ from male to female? An elementary school in Washington, D.C. provides a case study in the left’s efforts to foist ideological conformity on America’s school children, re-educating them in gender and sexuality according to queer theory.
Articles
The Federalist / August 6, 2014