Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, Influential Ex-President of Notre Dame, Dies at 97

NYT ^ | 2/27/2015 | ANTHONY DePALMA

[Borges]

The Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, the scrappy former president of the University of Notre Dame who stood up to both the White House and the Vatican as he transformed Catholic higher education in America and raised a powerful moral voice in national affairs, died late Thursday. He was 97.

The university confirmed his death in a statement on its website, saying that he had died just before midnight at Holy Cross House adjacent to the university, in South Bend, Ind. It did not give a cause of death.

As an adviser to presidents, special envoy to popes, theologian, author, educator and activist, Father Hesburgh was considered the most influential priest in America for decades. In 1986, when he retired after a record 35 years as president of Notre Dame, a survey of 485 university presidents named him the most effective college president in the country.

[Biggirl]

RIP.

[Honorary Serb]

Memory Eternal!

[traderrob6]

After he left ND turned to sh!t.

[SamuraiScot]

I will pray for the soul of the smarmy, destructive heretic.

[Borges]

What say you?

[irish guard]

I have many thoughts today, but among them, there aren't any which involve nasty comments. Like any other human, he had some flaws, and to the person above who said they would pray for him but then disparage him, I would ask what purpose that serves?

I tire of all the venom and bitterness that exists here at the FreeRepublic. Yes, it's an open forum and you get to say anything you'd like, but when people die or others here have asked for help and they receive ridicule,I just don't understand it. The bitterness and carping souns to me just like those people in the state house in Madison who beat drums and blow their vuvuzelas to get their way. If you don't like something, find a better way than to disparage a life or mock people who need help.

Requiescat in pace Fr. Hesburgh

[married21]

RIP Fr. Hesburgh. Whatever mistakes he made in life, it’s time ask for the Lord’s mercy on his soul, as I would hope people will do for me, despite mistakes I’ve made.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[jobim]

It's absolutely crucial to put his life and words and actions under a microscope, and let's not call it sniping, or venomous. Few men in the past 50 years have done more damage to the Catholic Church in America than Fr Hesburgh, whether he thought he was doing what was best or whether he had vile purpose. But his catastrophic reign must be analyzed in the attempt to learn what can be done to reverse his destructive pronouncements.

Father Hesburgh has always held a special place in the hearts of Catholic Democrats like Pelosi and Biden who want to be able to vote in favor of abortion rights yet still be perceived as being in the good graces of the Church. Pro-choice Catholic politicians are grateful to Father Hesburgh because for the past 40 years he has been providing them with the kind of Catholic cover they have needed to continue voting to expand abortion.

Msgr. Kelly wrote that during his years as Notre Dame’s president, “Father Hesburgh’s ecclesiology became steadily more hostile to the hierarchy… In 1972, when he was a delegate to the International Congress of Catholic Universities, at a meeting held on Vatican territory—within mere feet of the office of Pope Paul VI—he threatened to walk out and take the American delegation with him if Rome dared to impose norms for the conduct of American colleges.”

he told a Wall Street Journal reporter that he had “no problem with females” as priests in the Catholic Church.

Father Hesburgh defied Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend and supported the honoring of President Barack Obama at Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2387/the_problematic_legacy_of_fr_hesburgh.aspx

[irish guard]

"Few men in the past 50 years have done more damage to the Catholic Church in America than Fr Hesburgh, whether he thought he was doing what was best or whether he had vile purpose."

Please.....let's start with whether you think he had an intentional vile purpose. Produce one. And I will say to anyone, the most damage anyone did to the Catholic church in the last 50 years are the priests who preyed upon innocent young people. You may not like what he did or said, but it does not rival pedophelia. His walking out in 1972 related to academic independence. Your edited text makes it sound as though he was Martin Luther. And please provide evidence of Hesburgh favoring abortion. Finally, Hesburgh hasn't been president of Notre Dame for more than 28 years, when he retired. So whatever happened since then was not on his watch.

[EveningStar]

smarmy, destructive heretic

How's that?

[jobim]

whether you think he had an intentional vile purpose

No, my statement left open the possibility he thought he was doing the right thing. But then, when we cease forming our conscience in conjunction with the Church's Magisterium, then we go astray.

His walking out in 1972 related to academic independence

Precisely. Are you going to argue that Notre Dame, DePaul, the Loyolas, Santa Clara, Fordham, Georgetown, on and on are truly Catholic? And are you going to argue that Hesburgh did not play a large role in their secularization?

evidence of Hesburgh favoring abortion

Are you going to argue that his "personally opposed but favoring access" is anything other than unlimited slaughter with a "Catholic" imprimatur?

[irish guard]

Hesburgh clearly played a role in the secularization of Notre Dame, but only in the name of academic independence of thought. This is a fine line nuance that Hesburgh saw the need for at the time and we both might not agree with that, but your clip was misleading. It suggested he was defying the church. If he was, they’d have kicked him out, just like Martin Luther. And I can tell you that despite the press and what you think, Notre Dame is still a very Catholic place for the students.

[jobim]

Accolades are correctly given to a real giant of the Catholic faith at Notre Dame, Charles Rice, who by coincidence died this week as well.

Meanwhile, Rice, Professor Emeritus of Law at Notre Dame, as well as a former Marine, reports thoroughly and honestly on the intelligence history of the war on othodoxy at Our Lady's University, as well as providing a detailed battle plan for victory. For example, Rice (citing a report by St. Louis University professor, Donald T. Critchlow) shows how the Land O'Lakes Statement, which looking back could accurately be called Notre Dame's "Declaration of Independence" from Rome, was actually preceded by a series of annual meetings on "population problems" held at Notre Dame from 1963 to 1967. These meetings, sponsored by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations (both of whom would later donate big bucks to Notre Dame's endowment) were held in "quasi-secrecy" because "only liberal Catholic clergy and academics were invited." They, along with groups like Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Population Council, met to "create an oppositional voice within the Catholic Church on family planning," and "in 1965 these thirty-seven scholars released a statement...to the Vatican...urging the pope to reverse the church's opposition to artificial contraception" (pg. 45). "In turn, Father Hesburgh, while sincere in his desire to explore the family planning and population issue, realized that association with the established foundation community could only benefit his university by imparting a certain respectability that comes from associating with eastern philanthropic foundations." In a nutshell, these associations, along with the prestige (and money) they brought, go a long way to explaining not only Notre Dame's subsequent history of hiring Catholic imposters like Fr. McBrien instead of more real Notre Dame men like Rice or Freddoso, but its continual honoring of pro-abortion politicians like Mario Cuomo (1984), Patrick Moynihan (1992), and finally Obama.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/otoole/100811

To say that Hesburgh's thinking was the mind of the Church at the time, and therefore he is not to be held accountable for travesty we are witnessing in all of Catholic education today, is indefensible. And his green light to abortionist Democrats? You didn't respond to that one. Is he innocent of the political theater that gives us Kennedy, Pelosi, Biden? And women priests? Was that the mind of the Church then?

We pray for his soul, in the hope that he has merited Purgatory; but we make no pretense about the legacy he left on earth.

[SamuraiScot]

smarmy, destructive heretic

How's that?

For starters, Hesburgh was the organizer of the Land o' Lakes Conference of 1965 (I think that's the year), where academics and colleges from all over the country announced their complete independence of their bishops and of Catholic teaching. They (including and especially Hesburgh) turned their theology departments into Church-bashing seminars where giving the orthodox answer got you a bad grade. It persists to this day in most Catholic-in-Name Only colleges, which for the parents, pretend to be Catholic, while indulging the self-serving, anti-Catholic venom of the faculty. (If you want good theology, it's hiding in the philosophy department, if it's there.) In effect, suddenly each professor became his own pope, his own God.

The bishops' authority in their own dioceses was cut off at the knees. It's been described as the biggest theft of Church real estate since Henry VIII.

Hesburgh was the persistent opponent of the pro-life movement and coddler of pro-death "Catholic" politicians. And how do you think Cuomo Sr. got the invitation to give his "I'm personally opposed to killing babies, but I vote for it every time" speech in 1984? As Slate accurately said in Mario's obit, "Cuomo Made the Case for Catholics to be Pro-Choice." Well, Hesburgh made that possible, knowingly giving Cuomo the prime spot at the quintessentially Catholic American university to drop his neutron bomb on America's unborn. St. Peter may have a thing or two to say about this, should Fr. Ted knock at the gate.

I'm scratching the surface. Check his columns. There's no pro-death socialist politician Hesburgh didn't coddle; there's no bad bishop he play footsie with; there's no good Pope he didn't resist. And he did all his back-stabbing moves against the Church and God Himself clothing himself in the pretentious, "inclusive," smiley-face, woman-churching, Democratic Party dishonesty that covers their scheming in the name of socialism—which to them means that real unselfishness, charity, and holiness are for peons.

There's more, so much more. God have mercy on him.

[Coleus]

Catholic Caucus: Hold the Applause: Father Hesburgh Deserves Prayers, Not Praise