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 equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth about the human person and counter gender ideology. She is also currently a Visiting Fellow for the Veritas Center at Franciscan University. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a three-time keynote speaker for the Holy See during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth and the Committee on Religious Liberty.

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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 equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth about the human person and counter gender ideology. She is also currently a Visiting Fellow for the Veritas Center at Franciscan University. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a three-time keynote speaker for the Holy See during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth and the Committee on Religious Liberty.

She speaks frequently at national conferences, universities, and in dioceses across the country and provides expert advice to legislators, policymakers, and NGOs on issues related to gender ideology.

The co-author of several books on education, Mary’s writing appears regularly in national media and academic publications.

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 seven.

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 reportWhat 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]

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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

Your Tuition Dollars at Work: How Colleges Promote a Perverse Sexual Ideology

Mary Rice Hasson

College and university administrations have officially endorsed—and are busy embedding—a new sexual ideology on campuses across the U.S.: the ‘sex-positive,’ morality-free, judgment-free celebration of “all forms of sexuality and consensual sexual experience.” Do board members, donors, alumni, and parents know—or even care?

Articles

The Family in America / June 9, 2014

A Cultural Package That Sorts Winners from Losers

Mary Rice Hasson

The Triple Package authors argue that American culture spurs “instant gratification disorder” instead of success. But does “Triple-Package-style” success really yield better results?

Articles

MercatorNet / May 30, 2014

Youth Rights: A Trojan Horse for the Left’s Sexual Agenda

Mary Rice Hasson

Parents who know nothing about their children’s sexual activities have no power to influence their children’s decisions – and that’s exactly what the Left wants.

Articles

The Federalist / February 13, 2014

Youth Rights and the Shrinking Power of Parents

Mary Rice Hasson

The left does not need to take our children in order to isolate them from parental influence and religious values. They have found a simpler way: putting children in supposed control over their own lives.

Articles

Abortion Zealots and the GOP’s Empty Playbook

Mary Rice Hasson

Unless the GOP plans to run up the white flag of surrender on the abortion issue, it needs a serious strategy to counter the Democrats’ “War on Women” rhetoric.

Articles

The Federalist / November 12, 2013

What’s It Like to Torture Someone?

Mary Rice Hasson

Grand Theft Auto V is not the first video game to feature torture scenes. But having broken the taboo against interactive torture scenes, it marks the beginning, not the end, of a troubling trend.

Articles

MercatorNet / October 21, 2013

Breaking Silence: Catholics, Contraception, and Same-Sex Marriage

Mary Rice Hasson

Many Catholics don’t accept the truth about marriage because they don’t accept—or even know—the truth about sex. It’s time to break silence and tell them the truth.

Articles

Catholic Stand / July 8, 2013

Zero-Sum Parenting

Mary Rice Hasson

The author of a new book, One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One, views children through a warped feminist lens, where parenting is a zero-sum game and each child is a potential threat to a woman’s ‘authentic self.’ She couldn’t be more wrong.

Articles

MercatorNet / June 13, 2013