Free Republic

About a year ago, I was standing in line at a tiny post office in rural America when I saw something quite extraordinary. No, not a motivated postal employee. A Theodore Hesburgh stamp. Theodore who? Those who are not regular readers of the Catholic press may be forgiven for not recognizing Hesburgh’s name. Even NOR readers may puzzle over why Hesburgh warranted his own place in the adhesive pantheon — called to the counters, as it were, as one of the “secular saints” (to borrow Pieter Vree’s phrase from a memorable New Oxford Note) who lend the Washington Leviathan moral...

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...

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, March 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, the prestigious former president of the University of Notre Dame, may have helped swing a critical House Democrat vote to the "yes" column after House Speaker Pelosi asked for his help, reported the LA Times and the Associated Press last Tuesday.  The South Bend Tribune confirmed the report on Friday. Hesburgh was called in to persuade U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) to vote for the health care bill despite the vast expansion of abortion funding embedded in it. Donnelly had been a member of the group of Democrats led by...