In the fall of 2000, during my first semester at Notre Dame Law School, I had the privilege of joining approximately 25 other Notre Dame students for an evening with Father Theodore Hesburgh in his thirteenth floor library office. Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s legendary president from 1952 until 1987, known universally as Fr. Ted, regaled us with stories about his global trips and the varied experiences his tenure as Notre Dame’s president had afforded him. Fr. Ted also spoke with deep conviction about his priesthood and proudly told us that he had never missed saying Mass even when he was in the hospital. It was clear that this was a priest to his core.
Near the end of our hour or two with Fr. Ted, he stated in passing that he didn’t understand why the Church didn’t ordain women. It was a discordant note coming from someone who so obviously loved the Church and his priesthood. Indeed, Fr. Ted’s fatherhood was palpable that evening as he talked with students some 60+ years his junior. That he would endorse something that the Church had stated repeatedly she had no authority to confer was unsettling. But what made it more unsettling was that Fr. Ted’s spiritual fatherhood we all experienced in a real, tangible way that evening was the best “argument” for the Church’s teaching many of us likely had encountered. Fr. Ted was nothing if not enigmatic.
It is to this enigmatic figure that the late-Fr. Ted’s confrere and noted historian Fr. Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C., devotes his impressive book, American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame’s Father Ted Hesburgh. Miscamble, Professor of History at Notre Dame and a member of the Holy Cross Order, writes that he came to the subject of Fr. Ted because he “wanted to understand better what had happened” at Notre Dame to create such a “sizable element on the university’s faculty that seemed determined to emasculate Catholicism’s role in the academic heart of the university.” Miscamble’s intent is to “move beyond what might be termed the learned hagiography” Father Ted’s “obituaries” to offer a “serious and critical assessment” of his life.
On this score, Miscamble has amply succeeded. His biography is equal parts charitable and critical.
Hesburgh’s path to the priesthood
Theodore Martin Hesburgh was born in 1917 in Syracuse, New York, where he lived until he left in the fall of 1934 to enter the Holy Cross Order. Hesburgh was closer both in relations and temperamentally to his Irish-American mother. While a teenager the Holy Cross priests came to preach a mission and Hesburgh revealed his desire to serve as a priest one day. One of the Holy Cross priests suggested to Hesburgh’s mom that she send him to high school at Notre Dame. Hesburgh’s mother’s response illuminates one source of Hesburgh’s own spunk. She replied that “A young boy’s place in his teenage days in home with his family.” The priest replied that he might “lose his vocation” if he remained at home. Not missing a beat, Hesburgh’s mother responded, “If he grows up in a Catholic family, all practicing Catholics and good with the sacraments, and he’s going to Mass every day at school, and he is going to a Catholic high school, if he loses his vocation, let me tell you something about it: he doesn’t have one.”
During Hesburgh’s high school years, he demonstrated intellectual curiosity and academic acumen. He studied Latin and French among other subjects. And he demonstrated a “strong disposition . . . to play the leading role.” And Hesburgh certainly didn’t lose his vocation. Thus, after high school found himself heading to Notre Dame to begin formation with the Holy Cross Order. Hesburgh would only be a student for two years at Notre Dame before being sent to Rome to further his studies. In Hesburgh’s estimation “most of his courses” at Notre Dame were “rather mediocre” though he was particularly influenced by the impressive Fr. Leo Ward and his year-long course on the philosophy of literature. It was Fr. Ward whose advice greatly aided Hesburgh in the many years ahead. On Hesburgh’s final paper, Fr. Ward wrote, “If you don’t learn to simplify your style with simple words, you will wind up being a pompous ass.” Hesburgh took the admonition to heart.
Hesburgh’s stay in Rome was shortened because of the outbreak of the Second World War but during his time there he learned some Italian and German, “read widely,” and gained some worldly sophistication. In the summer of 1940, Hesburgh returned to the United States and resumed his studies at Holy Cross College near Catholic University in Washington, D.C. In 1943, Bishop Noll of Fort Wayne ordained Fr. Hesburgh to the priesthood. Miscamble describes how Hesburgh and his fellow ordinandi understood the priesthood:
The ordinandi knew that they would undergo a profound ontological change. After Bishop Noll laid his hands upon them each became an alter Christus (another Christ), consecrated to be Christ and to do what Christ did, especially in their celebration of the sacraments—and most importantly when celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Ted Hesburgh drank deeply of the well of this priestly understanding and spirituality.
This understanding never left Hesburgh. Though Hesburgh “would witness major changes in the Church and in the liturgy during his life . . . the essential core of the priesthood remained fixed for him.” “Hesburgh never wavered in his understanding” of the priesthood. Indeed, it was this sense of the priesthood that was so evident to me and those other Notre Dame students that fall evening in 2000. For instance, in the early 1980s, Hesburgh described the “priestly role as one of mediation” and the priest as one who “stands between God and humankind and brings the blessings and graces of God to humans while also, in the other direction, bringing their hopes and needs and desires to God.”
After ordination, Fr. Ted headed back to Catholic University where he obtained a doctorate in sacred theology in just two years. His dissertation was on the lay apostolate and anticipated some of the themes of the Second Vatican Council. While Hesburgh’s heart was set on being a Navy chaplain, his provincial ordered him back to Notre Dame to teach theology. And so in the summer of 1945, Hesburgh returned to Notre Dame to which he would be devoted for the rest of his life.
Notre Dame professor and president
It was in those early years teaching that the “seeds of [Hesburgh’s] strong convictions that Notre Dame needed serious changes were firmly planted.” Hesburgh’s experiences in the religion department convinced him that changes needed to be made. He thought the introductory courses lacked “content and also often [were] poorly taught by Holy Cross priests who were untrained for the task.” “But,” as Miscamble notes, “Hesburgh was destined to be neither a teacher nor a publishing scholar;” he was very early in his tenure “called to administration and leadership.” His ascended like a rocket ship.
Notre Dame’s president from 1946 through 1952 was Fr. John Cavanaugh, a former Studebaker executive, who “recognized the great need for Notre Dame to improve its academic standing” and also saw that Notre Dame had to build up funds and “development capabilities” to bring about his vision. To do this Cavanaugh needed capable administrators and in Hesburgh he saw a priest with great abilities. Hesburgh rebuffed several offers to serve in administrative roles but could only stave Cavanaugh off for three years. In 1948, Hesburgh accepted the position as the chairman of the religion department. Hesburgh immediately got to work routinizing the theology curriculum and hiring well-trained and “competent” professors including pushing for “all faculty to gain the Doctorate in Sacred Theology.”
But after just one year as chair, Cavanaugh came calling again. Cavanaugh created a new executive vice president position and had Hesburgh accept it under religious obedience. Hesburgh vaulted into a position just below Cavanaugh where he oversaw “the work of four Holy Cross priest-vice presidents” who were older, more experienced, and more seasoned than Hesburgh. As Cavanaugh’s deputy, Hesburgh was thrown into a variety of big tasks. One of the biggest was reigning in Notre Dame’s legendary football coach, Frank Leahy. Here, Hesburgh first demonstrated his noble ambition to make athletics serve the university, not the other way around. For instance, Hesburgh “established regulations for injured players and gave the team doctor rather than the coach final approval for the availability of players.”
In 1952, after just three years as vice president and at the tender age of 35, the Holy Cross provincial assigned Hesburgh “the obedience to serve as president of the University of Notre.” Hesburgh had not even celebrated his tenth anniversary as a priest. Hesburgh would serve as Notre Dame’s President until 1987. During his long tenure, Hesburgh was the force who led Notre Dame’s rise from a scrappy Catholic college whose student-athletes inspired legions of Catholic immigrants to a major research university. It was a journey fraught with success and peril and many of Notre Dame’s struggles today to live out her Catholic mission have their roots in Hesburgh’s efforts.
Hesburgh’s inspiring vision
Those struggles do not have their origin, however, in Hesburgh’s vision. As president, Hesburgh’s vision was to make Notre Dame into a “great Catholic university, the greatest in the world!” A year into his tenure as president, Hesburgh articulated the role of “Christian Scholars,” stating that their “‘prime concern must be to offer a worthy gift to the service of God and man.’” And a Catholic university had an advantage over secular universities because such institutions were “largely cut off from the tradition of adequate knowledge which comes only through faith in the mind and faith in God, the highest wisdom of Christian philosophy and Catholic theology.” As Miscamble writes of Hesburgh’s early efforts at Notre Dame:
It is crucial to comprehend that Hesburgh engaged in no facile effort to raise academic standards in accord with existing secular standards. He did not come into office determined to transform Notre Dame into some midwestern version of Princeton. Although he used that Ivy League school as a model for some elements in his planning at Notre Dame, his recognition of the limits of secular education and his blunt criticism of it stand out.
This was an intoxicating and attractive vision. Indeed, a Catholic university or college president who articulated such a vision today would be rightly praised for presenting a model of the university as a place where faith and reason buttress each other in the search for timeless wisdom.
Uneven execution and worldly standards
No serious Catholic who has spent any actual time at Notre Dame observing it and engaging in its patterns of life can accept the conclusion of many conservative and traditionalist Catholics that Notre Dame is merely a secular school with a Marian name. But neither can he conclude that Notre Dame has lived up to the grand and intoxicating vision Hesburgh articulated at the beginning of his tenure. At Notre Dame there is a push and a pull, pockets of great, dynamic orthodoxy, people thinking with the Church and large swaths of the University that have all but forgotten their Marian Patroness and the Church from which the entire Notre Dame project springs. The reality of what Hesburgh helped create and his vision diverged. The question is why.
Here, too, Miscamble offers a variety of answers to explain how Notre Dame came to be the ambivalently Catholic place it is today. First, there was Father Ted himself. As Miscamble writes, Father Ted had an “uncomplicated spirituality,” which has its benefits, but also led him to trust deeply in wherever he believed he was being led. “He prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide him and he rested comfortably in the belief that the Third Person of the Trinity directly inspired his actions.” In other words, Father Ted was not prone to doubt God but he also was not prone to self-doubt. While from Miscamble’s account, one never gets the sense that Hesburgh was arrogant or condescending—and my limited interactions with him confirmed this—Hesburgh was, it seems, filled to the brim with confidence. And that confidence betrayed a lack of introspection. While a self-questioning university president, à la Hamlet, would be a poor university leader, Hesburgh’s confidence led to other faults. It is not clear that his confidence in his path and actions allowed him to observe the gaps between his expansive vision for a Catholic university and the actual practical steps taken to institute it.
And as Hesburgh got further into his tenure as president in the late 1960s and 1970s, this self-confidence coincided with a loss of confidence in the Catholic thing that manifested itself in two related ways. While no one doubts that Hesburgh was a priest to his core, it seems that he lost faith and trust in the Church as a measuring stick for excellence. And this was combined with an explicit confidence in the secular world’s standards of excellence.
This led to a distancing of Notre Dame from its ecclesiastical ties. Hesburgh oversaw and led Notre Dame’s “transfer of ownership from the Holy Cross order to a joint lay-religious board of fellows in the summer and fall of 1966.” Hesburgh believed that this transfer of ownership would “give Notre Dame a more reputable governing structure and make it more presentable in the broad academic community.” And Hesburgh did not stop there. He was the convener of the famous Land O’Lakes Conference that through its statement, “The Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University,” articulated Catholic colleges’ and universities’ radical separation and autonomy from the institutional Church.
While Hesburgh did not begin his tenure hoping to fashion a midwestern Princeton, Miscamble describes how eventually the “Harvard-Berkeley model” became the barometer for Hesburgh and Notre Dame. It was the “major research universities” that “established the criteria for assessing excellence,” not the Church. Because “Hesburgh wanted Notre Dame to be respected as a university by its secular peers . . . he worked largely in light of their criteria to develop its academic strengths and reputation during the late sixties and early seventies.”
While Hesburgh “additionally wanted to enhance Notre Dame’s standing as a Catholic institution . . . his work on his own campus provided less focused.” For instance, “on a practical level,” Hesburgh failed “to ensure that careful attention would be giving to hiring faculty and developing the content of the curriculum.” While Hesburgh “grasped something of the importance of these tasks” he could “neither marshal the energy nor recruit the associates to address them efficaciously.”
Ultimately it was these errors of judgment, practical missteps the distancing of Notre Dame from ecclesiastical control—however well-intentioned as a way to escape a certain parochialism—and zeal for ill-defined worldly excellence, among other things, that combined to make the modern Notre Dame.
Lessons for today
Miscamble’s biography gives us much to admire and praise in Hesburgh. Hesburgh’s public service and his commitment to racial justice and reconciliation, which could fill a whole other review, were integral parts of his life and flowed from his priestly heart. His personal warmth and generosity were legendary. If all our priests spoke and lived their priesthoods as Hesburgh did, we’d be in a much better place.
At the same time, Miscamble’s account offers us a cautionary tale. Father Ted famously said that Notre Dame was the place “where the church does her thinking.” But as Miscamble writes, Hesburgh “never effectively reconciled how the very entity that supposedly did the Church’s ‘thinking’ was somehow independent of the body it supposedly thought for.” Hesburgh’s personal piety and dedication to the priesthood were no substitute for actual, faithful, substantial union with the Church. Personal piety is a necessary but not sufficient condition for fruitful faithfulness. Good judgment, fidelity to Christ and his Church, and holiness of mind are also necessary.
As one considers Hesburgh and the path he took, one cannot help but think of another great 20th-century churchman, Henri de Lubac. De Lubac suffered greatly from the Church in his fidelity to Christ and the Church. But de Lubac bore that suffering with great dignity and remained faithful and obedient. Indeed, at the height of his troubles with his Jesuit superiors, de Lubac wrote about Christian obedience stating that so “long as” someone was “invested with legitimate authority and does not command [one] to do evil, it is certain that it will be wrong to disobey” his orders and requests. These words were not mere abstractions for de Lubac but fraught with concrete meaning. And the creative, faithful fruits of de Lubac’s obedience are there for all to see. De Lubac points to a different path—a path not taken by Hesburgh and Notre Dame.
Indeed, the most fruitful and creative elements of Notre Dame today are emblematic of this sort of faithful and obedient fruitfulness. The theology department, largely because of the leadership of John Cavidini between 1997 and 2010, has become a jewel. The law school is a place filled by faculty serious about understanding how to live out a Christian vocation to the law. The McGrath Institute for Church Life publishes the impressive Church Life Journal and boasts such fellows as Abigail Favale. The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture hosts an impressive annual fall conference that brings scholars across the world together to think through important philosophical and ethical questions.
The lesson we can glean from Father Ted’s life is not that he dreamed too big. His vision was powerful and imaginative. But creative fidelity requires union to Christ’s Church and concrete follow through. It requires day-in and day-out holiness of life and practical virtue to be instantiated. And it requires a willingness to follow the Church when the world’s standards depart from Christ’s. In American Priest, Father Miscamble paints the portrait of a paradoxical figure who can help us realize these lessons.
American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame’s Father Ted Hesburgh
By Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C.
Image, 2019
Hardcover, 464 pages
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Who needs the Catholic faith when you have a great football team and the likes of Mario Cuomo and Barack Obama on the cheerleading squad?
Why pick on Obama? I haven’t heard about him being prosecuted!
But, but, but, but….what about Trump? What you write rings hollow.
I might remind you that Obama is a proponent of partial birth abortion whereby a full-term human person is allowed to be partially “born” such that his/her head emerges from the “mother’s” womb in order that a scissors can be inserted in the nape of the neck to insert a vacuum tube to suck out the contents of the cranium. With that in mind, Notre Dame honored Obama. Says all I need to know about the moral standing of this alleged Catholic college. But, what a helluva football team they’ve got!
He’s a socialist for starters.
Everyone involved in the Trump prosecution, should be prosecuted for their crimes in framing him. He is a man larely hated for having saved more lives than any man in human history. And if we had any sort of just society, Obama would be serving a life sentence for his crimes against humanity.
Years Hesburgh’s autobiography was being read aloud in our monastic refectory during the noon meal — which says much about the character of the community’s leadership — but by Wednesday it had been laid aside due to the unbearable egoism of the man. Everyone across the spectrum of age and opinion could not stand him. His was an unbearable exercise in narcissism and an exposé of clerical imperialism. He embodied everything wrong with American Catholicism and the post-conciliar debacle.
See you in Cabo, Ted?
I have to agree. Hesburgh always seemed to me to have an outsized ego, and overbearing arrogance to match, especially in his views on race relations: He was RIGHT, and others were WRONG. Nothing to talk about if you held views different than his. At the same time, he was not exactly a stalwart defender of the faith, as you might expect the president of America’s flagship Catholic university to be. Instead he appears in retrospect to be the architect of everything that went wrong with Catholic higher education.
Lost me at “Notre Dame.”
Not sure what is happening at ND; “an explicit confidence in the secular world’s standards of excellence.” — is this why Obama was asked there as a VIP?
Obama was never asked there as VP. He was asked there as President in 2009 and Biden was asked there as VO at Commencement in 2016.
You need to read more closely before responding – I said “VIP” – stands for “very important person.”
What is VO – vice officer?
Would a simple “whoops” suffice? Perhaps a double “whoops.”
I’ll never forget . . . in an effort to get the USCCB to endorse “Obamacare”, Nancy Pelosi bragged about contacting Fr. Theodore Hesburgh to put pressure on the governing body and foster the Catholic vote. That, and several other incidents under Jenkins have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that ND is operating as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Fr. Hesburgh was successful in his mission to make Notre Dame into a world-class institution, but it seems to me that something beyond precious was lost along the way – humility. For an institution that calls itself ‘Catholic’ that is eventually fatal.
I lived in Indiana in the late 90s and one of the annual events of the winter at Notre Dame was the performance of the foul play ‘The Vagina Monologues’. I cannot recall the exact year but at that time (in illo tempore) opening night of the play was Wednesday night at Washington Hall – Ash Wednesday, one of the most solemn days in the Catholic calendar. (I would call that blasphemous but that’s just me). Some friends and I had small protest cards – about 3 1/2 * 5 – printed up and we went to Mass in the Basilica and put them in the pews. We were quickly told – gently but very firmly – that such was not permitted. We then went to speak to some Priests about it and they agreed with us but I got the distinct impression that they had been told to keep their mouths shut. We then tried to get on the campus radio to talk about it but were denied, and I got the impression that the students there really didn’t think it was a big deal.
There is also their honoring Barack Obama – at that time the most pro-abortion president in American History – with an honorary degree in 2009, defying the Fort-Wayne diocese in doing so. In addition – in 2016 they gave Joe Biden the Laetare medal, which is their highest award for the laity. Not long after that Biden presided at a same-sex wedding on his website. And now of course he has succeeded Obama as the most pro-abortion president in American history.
That being said – this looks like an interesting book which will find its way to my bookshelves.
Oh, you mustn’t forget Hesburg’s involvement in the Land ‘O Lakes fiasco and the fact that McCarrick had his hand in that (as well as in other unmentionable places).
I’m just asking, don’t the Bishops/Arch/Cardinals have control over ND or other Catholic higher eds?
The Fort-Wayne Diocese does not have control over Notre Dame, and that is not the only time Notre Dame has openly defied them. It’s usually done under the guise of ‘academic freedom’.
“Academic Freedom”, for those Baptized Catholics who deny that God, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque), Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, is the freedom to deny The Deposit Of Faith, making it appear as if it is possible to have “Sacramental Communion without Ecclesial Communion”, as if it is possible for a counterfeit schismatic church to subsist within The One Body Of Christ, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque).
“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles.”
The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature, does not change the nature of the act. Love, which is rightly ordered to the inherent personal and relational Dignity of the human person, who is first and foremost a beloved son or daughter, is devoid of every form of lust.
All Catholics are called to be, in The Holy Name Of Jesus, “a counter cultural light” that shines in The Darkness illuminating The Sacred Heart Of Jesus. How then, can any Catholic Institution honestly claim that substituting “Pride”, which serves to exclude respect for The Sanctity of the marital act, within The Sacrament Of Holy Matrimony, for Christ’s Sacred Heart, in order to tolerate, accommodate, justify, and eventually mandate respect for the engaging in or affirmation of sexual acts, that regardless of the actors, or the actors desires, including if the actors are a man and woman, united in Marriage as husband and wife, are physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually harmful, demeaning the inherent Dignity of every beloved son and daughter, and thus, due to the fact that these sexual acts are not and can never be, acts of authentic Life-affirming and Life-sustaining Love, can never serve for The Common Good or the Good of any beloved son or daughter.
Those who desire to exchange The Truth Of Love for lust, deny and blasphemy The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, and thus deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, The Essence Of Life-Affirming And Life-Sustaining Salvational Love,
It has always been about “The Marriage, In Heaven and On Earth”
Perfect Love does not divide, it multiplies, as in The Loaves And Fishes.
And this is why we can know through both Faith and reason that the election of Jorge Bergoglio, cannot possible be valid because prior to his election to The Papacy, he was not in communion with Christ, and ever other validly elected Pope.
Jorge Bergoglio’s heresy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly: “If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin.
“4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
God Save The Papacy! May The Immaculate Heart Of Our Blessed Mother Mary, Triumph Soon🙏💕🌷
“4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
First Principles matter.
The Land of Lakes document, where Catholic institutions declared themselves to have “institutional autonomy and academic freedom”, is not a valid document as it was never officially validated by The Magisterium Of The Catholic Church.
In fact, the following statement, which denies that a Catholic must first and foremost be in communion with Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, denies Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching Of The Magisterium grounded in The Deposit Of Faith. (See also Catholic Canon 750), is a statement of excommunication, which we can know through both Faith and reason, “ipso facto”, separates one self from The One Body Of Christ, which exists “Through, With, And In Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost”.
Why would any Catholic Bishop who desires Salvation for his beloved, support the invalid Land of Lakes document, which is both anti Filioque and anti Papacy and deny the authority he receives from Christ?
A Baptized Catholic declaring himself/herself independent from the authority of Christ and The Church that Christ Has Founded, is the very definition of Pride.
“And he can be like gods, declaring what is good and evil.”
Jesus The Christ Is Calling all True Bishops to lead His Flock during this time of Great Apostasy.
First Principles matter.
“To perform its teaching and research functions effectively the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself”,
A review which overall certainly puts a positive spin on Father Hesburgh. Some years ago, I read a statement from a Notre Dame professor where he said that based on 25 years’ experience teaching there, and having several of his children attend there, “That the typical graduate of Notre Dame was an illiterate with regard to his faith.” Anything to do with his legacy?
Maybe it would have been good if Father Hesburgh’s superior had permitted him to become a Navy chaplain.
Wonderfully informative and balanced book, and reviewing article. Here’s a broad notion about “lessons for today.” We read: “Personal piety is a necessary but not sufficient condition for fruitful faithfulness. Good judgment, fidelity to Christ and his Church, and holiness of mind are also necessary.”
Can we connect the dots?
Hesburgh’s “lay-religious board of fellows,” his lack of focus on professor selections, the school’s priority of the Land O’Lakes Declaration (1968) over the corrective Ex Corde Ecclesiae (1990), and now a lay-clerical synodism displacing the Successors of the Apostles as “facilitators,” and ivory tower ambiguity on things revealed and doctrinal, and Hesburgh’s festering obtuseness (even in year 2000) toward Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), that is, the very nature of the Church as the Bride of Christ. What might Hesburgh say today about a proposed lesbianized Church (with female priestesses serving the Bride)?
The Church’s model today for engaging the post-modern world seems to be less Vatican II than it is Hesburgh’s fraternal membership on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation (not mentioned in the article), where he thought it sufficient to simply not vote on programs contradicting his Catholic presence…
Today, the equally strategic and inadequate silence toward affirming (!) Veritatis Splendor and toward the dubia. And, the truncated vision of the new head of the Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith–who apparently would displace the “deposit of faith” with prioritized “theology,” and moral judgments with merely disciplinary “decisions.”
The “lesson for today” is to take a really deep breath and turn the lights back on.
Excellent review, capturing the complexity of Hesburgh and Notre Dame and accurately identifying the crux of the problem: the inadequately discriminating quest for worldly respect. That’s also more generally the story of American Catholic higher education in the twentieth century.
Oh, I think the pressure of the idea of making ND a “world class” institution subconsciously peaked his sense of pride.
Development at the University ruled. The few orthodox Catholics that attend ND every year persist in their beliefs of total respect towards Love and Life. They are a remnant that gathers. Nevertheless, Notre Dame could have been a better example to the worldly class of the world, which, in one way or another, is just about evrybody.
He called Notre Dame “the place where the Church does her thinking” … Yet we talk about the personal piety of Hesburgh? He was cut of the same cloth as Paul VI, with the hubris to make tabula rasa of everything he inherited. Notre Dame today is a waste land. They demanded a lot more than 30 pieces of silver to betray Christ. But eventually, a price was agreed upon.
Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Who said that? 😙
I attended Notre Dame in the early 60s and Fr. Hesburgh was NOT universally known as ‘Father Ted’. That name has a kindly, pastoral ring to it and Fr. Hesburgh was not that kind of Priest.
‘Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s legendary president from 1952 until 1987, known universally as Fr. Ted, regaled us with stories about his global trips.’
I think this explains an awful lot. Too many priests live the high life. Travelling, usually first class, dining out, flash cars, housekeepers etc. I am not saying this is true of all, but it is for too many. They become estranged from people, and people struggling to pay bills take exception to being instructed by someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Not a new problem, Chaucer referenced it, but in the material age it all gets a bit tiresome.
From what I’ve read/heard of the past, priests were somewhat considered super human? Maybe that still continues to some extent and has affected some of their thinking? Probably spoiled, as the priests I grew up with were often downright thrifty for the most part, but they were born in the Depression or right afterwards – they knew how tough paying the bills were for Mom and Pop parishioner.
Father Miscamble’s book is a well-balanced biography of Father Hesburgh. It also sheds some light on the times in general. If you are interested in the state of Catholic higher education, it is well worth the read.
Having gone to ND and having sent two of my children there, I can tell you that you can still get a Catholic education at Notre Dame if you look for it. But it might not happen if you do not invest the effort. A great resource for students (and their parents) interested in a Catholic education at ND can be found at https://sycamoretrust.org/ndcatholic-com/
I would also recommend sycamoretrust.org for anyone interested in the state of Catholic higher education. For years they have been fighters against the secular culture infecting ND.
I root for SMU, BYU, TCU or an other U when this phony Catholic school plays football.
Greg: I’ll add University of Michigan to your list.
My son just graduated from ND. I entered the first year of his time there with a mix of reservation and pride. He was definitely entering a very academically selective University, however, as mentioned above, I was very concerned about the orthodoxy issues. After the four years, I would echo Pat M above. You can have a very devout and Christ filled Catholic education if you strive for it. There are good priests and good Professors who live and teach the Catholic faith. However, you can also go down the path of hedonistic, alcohol fueled, self-reverential, anti-magisterium lifestyle with little to no repercussions from University leadership. I think ND actually likes and tolerates a large amount of orthodoxy among a significant portion of its student body and faculty in order to provide a bit of smokescreen for a very engaged “woke” contingent who are working behinds the scenes to resist or deconstruct a traditional Catholic faith. The have cover to do so from the practicing and devout Catholics on the campus. I would say go to any student wishing to go, but be discerning of authority and pop culture there.
A good statement and well said. Thanks
A good and faithful priest in a parish in NW Chicago Suburbs was frequently highly critical of ND’s leadership on various issues that he made known in his sermons. When Cardinal Cupich came to town that stopped. Now it seems any criticism of ND is off limits in sermons. So lesson learned if your a Priest in leadership at a big name Catholic University you are beyond reproach for any support for lack of Catholic consistency. However if you are a Catholic Pro Life Priest you better watch your step, beware.
My husband graduated from Notre Dame in 1962. A joke popular on campus at the time went like this: “What is the difference between God and Fr. Hesburgh? God is everywhere but Fr. Hesburgh is everywhere except Notre Dame.”
“Fr. Ted regaled us with stories about his global trips and the varied experiences his tenure as Notre Dame’s president had afforded him.”
Imagine if he had taken the students in groups of 25 and regaled them with the mysteries of faith, the saving power of Christ, and the exploits of missionaries (and their “global trips” over the centuries) despite the odds. Perhaps those “experiences” did include divine elements, but methinks that the power of that personality could have influenced things quite differently if he had so chosen.
I wish to commend the book review and the excellent comments made in response to it. As a person who graduated from a Brothers of Holy Cross staffed high school, I can proudly state that it was very Catholic oriented and obedient to the Church while fostering the highest academic standards and the desire to learn. There was never any straying from the teachings of the Church and, yet, it is a very successful school still today. My sincere “thank you” for this excellent review and to the commentators. I have learned a lot today and have had questions answered.
Perhaps we can worship God and riches? Patron Saint of Fundraising? We should show some respect for Fr. Ted’s achievements after he separated the school from episcopal oversight. He was like Disney. Money talks you know. If you don’t believe me, ask the German Bishops.
One day, while visiting the Campus of The University Of Notre Dame, as I walked past The Library, I got the courage to do what I had been hoping for sometime to do, speak to Father Hesburgh about my beloved daughter who had , when she went off to college, developed a same-sex sexual attraction, as the result of the perfect storm.
Not knowing if Father was even on campus, I entered the Library and took the elevator to the floor that Father Hesburgh’s office was on. With anxiety to the point of trembling, I was not quite ready to locate the office. As I turned down one of an aisle, filled with books, there he stood. I greeted him and he greeted me back and asked me what had brought me to this floor. I told him I had something personal to discuss with him, and was hoping he would be in his office. He graciously told me that he was available right then and he walked me to his office where he told his assistant at the main desk,
that I had asked to speak to him regarding a personal matter. She was gracious as well.
We walked into his actual office and I proceeded to tell him about my self, my large family, and my family’s connection to Notre Dame, before I addressesmy concerns about my beloved daughter who had developed a same-sex sexual attraction as the result of the perfect storm when she went away to college towards the end of her freshman year, I confided in him about some of the details, and I told him I needed some advice as to what I should do.
He told me I must continue to Love her, that she was born this way, and that I needed to accept her for who she was, to Love her for who she is. I asked him, but what exactly does that mean? He replied, do you Love her, and then said continue to Love her.
I asked, but what about the behavior? How can I affirm her behavior if I know that certain acts are not acts of Love and, in fact, demean her inherent Dignity? I preceded to tell Father that I Love my daughter as I Love all my children, and because I Love her, I desire that she, like all my children, develop healthy and Holy relationships and friendships that are grounded in authentic Love, and thus respectful of her inherent Dignity in private and in public.
Father Hesburgh had no response, he simply looked at me and said just Love her. That is the moment I knew Father Hesburgh was conflicted.
As I got up to leave, I thanked him for his time, and Father said, Pray for me, and I replied, I will, Please Pray for me and my family. He said he would.
When I left Father Hesburghs office that day, I wept because I knew something fundamentally had changed in Christ’s Church, due to a failure to understand the essence of authentic Love, and the fact that we cannot transform Christ; Christ transforms us, Through Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy available to all who desire to repent and believe The Good News.
I continue to Pray for Father, that at the hour of his death, he no longer was conflicted.
“Come Holy Ghost.”
“Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
And in our hearts take up thy rest;
Come with thy grace and heav’nly aid
To fill the hearts which thou hast made,
To fill the hearts which thou hast made.
2.
O Comforter, to thee we cry,
Thou heav’nly gift of God most high;
Thou font of life and fire of love,
And sweet anointing from above,
And sweet anointing from above.
3.
To ev’ry sense thy light impart
And shed thy love in ev’ry heart.
To our weak flesh, thy strength supply;
Unfailing courage from on high,
Unfailing courage from on high.
4.
O grant that we through thee may come
To know the Father and the Son,
And hold with firm, unchanging faith,
That thou art Spirit of them both,
That thou art Spirit of them both
5.
Praise be to thee, Father and Son
And Holy Spirit, with them one;
And may the Son on us bestow
The gifts that from the Spirit flow,
The gifts that from the Spirit flow.”
Thank you. A good story. You are courageous.
N.D.’s story rings true, too true. I’ve lived in the orbit of Notre Dame since 2019. My encounters have been depressing, but not exclusively so. Still, the campus screams decadence and money. The real estate developments continue to make housing less and less affordable. South Bend neighborhoods and news stories sound more and more like Detroit’s East Side. If I sound somewhat demoralized it is because for six years my pastor was Fr. Eduard Perrone — a priest cancelled with savage and mendacious publicity by the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Chancery and including the use of the electronic news ticker tape in Times Square, NYC. The, of course, there is Rome. I also lived in New York for seventeen years and I can tell there’s the reality of the Church Silent, the Church Accommodating, and the Church Confiscated by the Culture. One last comment. Over fifty years ago I encountered the predatory priest and seminarian culture. As far as I’m concerned, the appointment of Wilton Gregory and Theodore McGarrick to address homosexual predation in 2002 guaranteed failure and the continuing decline of Holy Mother Church. There are Sundays when attending Mass is a forced march.