[count-your-change]

That doesn't explain why the Catholic Church left him in place.

So again, if he was so “heretical” why did his superiors take such a hands off approach? Where is their moral outrage and moral courage if he was so contrary to the plain and expressed moral teachings of the church?

[bdeaner]

That doesn't explain why the Catholic Church left him in place. So again, if he was so “heretical” why did his superiors take such a hands off approach? Where is their moral outrage and moral courage if he was so contrary to the plain and expressed moral teachings of the church?

Hesburgh was duplicitous and tricky about what he was doing. It was a slight-of-hand trick. He presented one face of the university to the Bishops and another, different face to the Rockefellers and other granting institutions who had anti-Catholic intentions. The University was growing exponentionally and everyone was getting rich, so I imagine this was even more temptation to turn a blind eye to Hesburgh's evil. It was also a confusing and traumatic moment in the history of the Church, with all of the controversies of the 1960's -- Vatican II etc. -- that allowed Hesburgh and other Catholic Universities to exploit a time of uncertainty and upheaval, to use it to their advantage.

In any case, hindsight is 20/20. I'm less concerned with what the Church should have done back then, and more concerned with what it should be doing NOW to reform these universities. The telling of history, in this case, is in the service of mounting a defense of the necessity for urgent and unflinching action against Jenkins and Notre Dame, as well as other Universities that have openly violated Church authority. Enough is enough.