Fifty Years with Father Hesburgh

Robert Schmuhl

Description

For over half a century, Robert Schmuhl interviewed and wrote about Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., who served as the president of the University of Notre Dame from 1952 until 1987. Beginning as an undergraduate student during the 1960s, when he covered Hesburgh and Notre Dame for the Associated Press, to 2014 when he conducted his last visit with the frail ninety-seven-year-old priest, Schmuhl maintained a unique relationship with Father Hesburgh. Over time, Hesburgh’s meetings with Schmuhl evolved into a friendship, which is documented in this personal and warmhearted portrait of the man who was for decades considered the most influential priest in America. Fifty Years with Father Hesburgh: On and Off the Record contains excerpts and commentary from various interviews Schmuhl conducted with Father Hesburgh about his service as Notre Dame’s president, including the most difficult years of his presidency during the 1960s, when Notre Dame and other college campuses were in turmoil because of student protests against the Vietnam War and other issues. Knowing and working with four popes and nine U.S. presidents, Father Hesburgh was a moral force in virtually all major social issues of his day, including civil rights, peaceful uses of atomic energy, third-world development, and immigration reform. Schmuhl records Hesburgh’s candid reflections on the U.S. presidents with whom he worked and his assessment of the years after he left the university’s presidency and maintained an active life of service in retirement. Schmuhl expresses his devotion and respect in the chapters about Hesburgh’s twilight decades. He describes how Hesburgh dealt with macular degeneration and blindness in his later years, enlisting students to read the New York Times and other publications to him. During the 1990s and the first years of the twenty-first century, Father Ted was, as he liked to say, “everybody’s grandfather.” His open-door policy extended beyond students to faculty, staff, alumni, and campus visitors, and continued right up until the end of his life. Throughout the book, Schmuhl captures the essence, spirit, and humanity of a great leader.

Sujets

• Educators
• Historical
• HISTORY
• Lettres et linguistique
• Universidad de Notre Dame
• Biography
• Theodore Hesburgh
• Notre Dame
• Teacher
• General officer
• University of Notre Dame
• Vietnam War
• General
• United States
• Autobiography
• Université Notre-Dame

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268100926
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

FIFTY YEARS WITH FATHER HESBURGH
FIFTY YEARS WITH
Father Hesburgh
ON AND OFF THE RECORD
ROBERT SCHMUHL
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Copyright 2016 by University of Notre Dame
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Paperback published in 2018
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schmuhl, Robert, author.
Title: Fifty years with Father Hesburgh : on and off the record / Robert Schmuhl.
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016019556 (print) | LCCN 2016030895 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268100896 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-0-268-10090-2 (paperback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780268100919 (pdf) | ISBN | 9780268100926 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Hesburgh, Theodore M. (Theodore Martin), 1917-2015. | University of Notre Dame-Presidents-Biography. | University of Notre Dame-History-20th century.
Classification: LCC LD4112.1 .S35 2016 (print) | LCC LD4112.1 (ebook) | DDC 378.772/89-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019556
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper) .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
For alumni, students, faculty, and others who are beneficiaries of Father Hesburgh s transformation of Notre Dame and his affirmation of the humane imperative
Contents
Acknowledgments
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Through the Years
Prologue
ONE Ted the Head
TWO Reverend Father President
THREE White House Memories
FOUR Lessons from Friendship
FIVE An Unretiring Retirement
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Sections of some chapters that follow appeared earlier, either in my book, The University of Notre Dame: A Contemporary Portrait (University of Notre Dame Press, 1986) or in articles I wrote over the years for Notre Dame Magazine . Previously published material has been revised or adapted to focus more directly on Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. I m grateful to Notre Dame Press and to the editors of Notre Dame Magazine for their permission to extract passages from what I had already written, especially many quotations from extended interviews I conducted with Father Hesburgh, beginning in the 1980s.
The chapter about the U.S. presidents that Father Hesburgh knew and, in most cases, worked with exists solely because of the foresight of Robert Costa. A former prized student and now a prizewinning national political reporter for The Washington Post , Bob and his crew videotaped the conversation with Father Hesburgh for NDtv. This conversation took place during a regular session of my spring 2008 American Studies course, American Political Life.
Two administrative assistants at Notre Dame-Katie Schlotfeldt in the Department of American Studies and Mary Jo Young in the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics and Democracy-helped in many ways to prepare the manuscript. Katie transcribed two of the extended interviews, while Jo printed and organized different drafts of each chapter.
Several people provided information or pictures for this book, including Melanie Chapleau, Matt Cashore, Carolyn Hardman, Barbara Johnston, Mandy Kinnucan, Charles Lamb, Joe Raymond, Matt Storin, Kerry Temple, Amanda Retartha, Thomas Tweed, and Kevin Whelan.
Michael Schmuhl, Notre Dame class of 2005 and a third-generation Domer in our family, read the (semi)final text closely and made numerous suggestions that I incorporated into the version delivered to the publisher.
At the Notre Dame Press, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Stephen M. Wrinn, the director, and Stephen Little, the acquisitions editor. As copy editor, Kellie M. Hultgren improved the text by pointing out and correcting certain infelicities, and Matt Dowd did likewise for the new afterword that s published in this edition.
Once again, Judy Schmuhl proved to be the perfect wife for an obsessed writer, letting me keep my home office door shut (with a Do Not Disturb sign posted) while this book came into being. She even had to amuse herself on some mornings during our trip to Europe in the summer of 2015, when I needed time to draft one of the chapters.
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Through the Years
1917
Born on May 25 in Syracuse, New York
1934
Enrolled at the University of Notre Dame and entered the Congregation of Holy Cross
1939
Earned a bachelor of philosophy degree from the Gregorian University in Rome
1943
Ordained a Holy Cross priest at Sacred Heart Church (now Basilica) at Notre Dame
1945
Received doctorate in theology from Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) and returned to Notre Dame to teach religion and to serve as chaplain for World War II veterans on campus
1948
Named chairman of Notre Dame s Department of Religion
1949
Selected to be executive vice president of Notre Dame, a post he held until 1952
1952
Appointed the fifteenth president of Notre Dame at age thirty-five, beginning thirty-five years in that office
1954
Received appointment from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the National Science Board, the first of sixteen presidential appointments, a seat he held until 1966
1956
Named permanent Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, a position lasting until 1970
1957
Appointed by President Eisenhower to be a charter member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; subsequently named chairman of the commission by President Richard Nixon in 1969 but forced to step down by the White House in 1972 for exposing hiring practices in the federal government at variance with civil rights law
1961
Named to the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation; chair of the trustees from 1977 to 1982
1962
Profiled in a Time magazine cover article about Catholic intellectuals
1963
Served as chairman of the International Federation of Catholic Universities, a post he held until 1970
1964
Awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson in a White House ceremony, the youngest of thirty recipients including Aaron Copland, Walt Disney, T. S. Eliot, Helen Keller, Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and John Steinbeck
1967
Shepherded the transfer of Notre Dame governance from the Congregation of Holy Cross to a board of trustees composed of both religious and lay members
1968
Named by Pope Paul VI to head the Vatican s delegation to the conference celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1969
Wrote a nationally discussed letter to the Notre Dame community about the limits of protest on campus that became known as the fifteen-minute rule, stating that a quarter hour of meditation would be allowed before the university took action against demonstrators
1970
After the National Guard s shooting of protesters at Kent State, announced in a petition called the Hesburgh Declaration that the United States should end involvement in the Vietnam War
1971
Served as chairman of the Overseas Development Council, a position he held until 1982
1972
Championed the admission of women to Notre Dame, ending the all-male undergraduate student body that had existed for 130 years
1972
Built, at the request of Pope Paul VI, the Ecumenical Institute in Tantur, Jerusalem, to promote greater religious understanding and collaborative undertakings
1974
Appointed by Pope Paul VI to be a member of the Holy See s delegation to the United Nations
1974
Published The Humane Imperative: A Challenge for the Year 2000 (Yale University Press)
1974
Named by President Gerald Ford to the Presidential Clemency Board, his sixth White House appointment
1979
Nominated by President Jimmy Carter to be the first Catholic priest to serve as a U.S. ambassador to lead the American delegation to the U.N. Conference on Science and Technology for Development
1979
Appointed by President Carter to serve as chairman of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, which conducted its work for three years
1979
Published The Hesburgh Papers: Higher Values in Higher Education (Andrews and McMeel)
1983
Named by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Council for Culture
1984
Awarded an honorary degree-his one hundredth-from Notre Dame
1987
Retired as president of Notre Dame on June 1, shortly after celebrating his seventieth birthday
1989
Named founding cochair of the reform-proposing Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, work that continued until 2001
1990
Named to Harvard University s Board of Overseers and in 1994 elected president of the board, serving two years in that role
1990
Published his autobiography, God, Country, Notre Dame (Doubleday), which became a national best seller
1991
Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, service that continued to 2000
1992
Published Travels with Ted and Ned (Doubleday)
1999
Completed fact-finding trip to refugee camps in Kosovo for the United Nations
2000
Awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in the U.S. Capitol, the first figure in higher education so honored