Posted on 02/27/2015 1:35:46 PM PST by marshmallow
The Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, a transformative figure in Catholic higher education who led the University of Notre Dame for 35 years and wielded influence with U.S. presidents on civil rights and other charged issues of his era, died Feb. 26 on the university campus. He was 97.
A Notre Dame spokesman confirmed the death and said the cause was not immediately known.
Father Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame from 1952 to 1987, was considered one of the most important university leaders of the past century. On his watch, the Midwestern school once known mainly for Fighting Irish football became an academic powerhouse that was the pride of Catholic America.
Notre Dame went on a building spree in that time, including a 14-story library now named for Father Hesburgh. The university’s enrollment doubled and its endowment soared. Top scholars joined the faculty, lured by his vision of creating “a Catholic Princeton” in northern Indiana
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
And its Catholicity went in the opposite direction.
It sold its soul for material gain and worldly acclaim.
Fr. Hesburgh was a big-time troublemaker, leader of the movement to move formerly Catholic colleges out of the Church and into the wilderness. He led the way, and most of the other Catholic colleges followed.
Wherever he is now, he got some ‘splaining to do.
I'm going to guess it was "complications of old age."
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
It is obligatory to at least say a prayer for his soul.
But the world would have been a better place if his death had occurred about sixty years sooner.
Starting in the FIFTIES, Hesburgh had everything to do, with the help of Ford and Rockefeller money, with preparing the Church in America to accept contraception and abortion.
Mario Cuomo, Richard McBrien, Theodore Hesburgh. Few people die with a higher probability of damnation.
You mean the embarrassment of Catholic America.
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