Probably 5 years ago, I was up late in the library, strung out and pissed off, and found myself slapping and swearing at the copy machine outside his office.

As he made his way in to his office from the elevator, he stopped to pat me on the back and offer some kind words to put finals and school in perspective.

It really made an impression on me in that he seemed to genuinely care about me, someone he had just met. Also, I was stunned that at his age he was on his way IN to his office at 11:30PM.

I'm sure there are thousands of stories like this one because he is truly a great man.
dave | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 9:43 am | #

There are some great quick video clips of Fr. Hesburgh on google video. I recommend people check them out.
Pat | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 11:28 am | #

The Lord must be quite happy with His good & faithful servant.
Happy Birthday Father Hesburgh.
jim masterson | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 11:39 am | #

My daughter was an ND freshman in the fall of 2003. She was hurrying her way to class one day and blew by an older gentleman on the sidewalk.

He called out to her "What's the hurry?" and she turned back to see a priest. She assumed he was a retired Holy Cross, and as as she's been taught to be polite to everyone (particularly priests) she slowed down to walk with him.

At the beginning she was antsy because she was afraid she was going to be late to class, but as they talked she realized that whoever this person was, he was pretty insightful. He asked her name, where she was from, how she liked Notre Dame, how she was adjusting, if she had any concerns. He gave her good advice on some roommate issues. She enjoyed her time with him.

She split away to go to DeBartolo and said good bye. He walked on.

She was late to her class and when the prof asked her why, she mentioned she had been walking and talking with an older priest who helped her with some things.

The prof smiled. "You know who that was, don't you?"

On Sunday she sang Happy Birthday to him as she graduated.

As long as she lives she'll never forget that from ND freshmen to Presidents, good advice was always to be had at his doorstep.

Happy Birthday, Father Ted.
domerdad1 | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 12:28 pm | #

One of the few regrets that I have from my time at ND is that I never met with Fr. Ted in his library office. I have, however, gotten to know him on several other occasions. I strongly recommend any current students (and anyone else who has the opportunity) to speak with one of the greatest people I've ever known and who has ever lived.
Erik '04 | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 1:26 pm | #

http://www.hesburgh.org/images/m.../ multimedia.jpg

One of my favorite images on campus; Dome, Basillica, Touchdown Jesus, and ND Stadium included. There is a full-size photo in LaFortune (inside the west doors).
ChiDomer | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 1:40 pm | #

He also holds over 150 honorary degrees--good enough to claim a world record in the Guiness Book.
Guiness | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 1:47 pm | #

I shook his hand once and thought about all of the incredible people he had met and whose hands he had shaken in the course of his lifetime. I am still in awe. I have always been proud that his signature is my diploma.
Voice in the Wilderness | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 2:10 pm | #

His signature is ON my diploma!
Voice in the Wilderness | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 2:13 pm | #

the best story i ever got out of H was about when he got to fly in the SR71 blackbird. If you're a student there, stop by his office and ask about it. Its great.
domer03inbmore | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 2:20 pm | #

At my son's graduation Mass in the JACC, I received communion from Father Ted.
His books are all good reads.
God Bless him.
Subway Alumni | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 3:27 pm | #

Thanks for posting the article. He's a rare person whose name alone resonates the lofty possibilities of humanity.

Thank you, and Happy Birthday Father Hesburgh.
Bill H. | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 3:46 pm | #

God bless you Father Ted and thank you for helping make Notre Dame the University that it is today. Happy birthday.
Don E. Brook | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 10:28 pm | #

Fr. Hesburgh is to be commended for going on a year-long excursion away from campus after he stepped down so as not to be a shadow, as well as saying a Mass each day for 30 straight days for his good friend Fr. Joyce who had just died.

But at his death, Fr. Hesburgh will also need to answer to God for allowing the theology department to become, over time, an institution which did not faithfully pass on the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Let us keep him and ND in our prayers.
Pangborn Violence | Email | Homepage | 05.25.07 - 11:51 pm | #

Failure to maintain the doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church?

For whom who might gives a shit, what's that about?

One of my friends spotted Ted leaving the curb to get into a campus "limosine". He rushed up begging to get a picture.

Ted stepped out, arranged for one of his fellow priests to take the fan's camera and wrapped his arm around the friend for a shot of a lifetime.

When Ted was younger, he was known to have a trick memory.

I was one of three that encountered him in the walkway in front of the main building off to the side of Sorin. After a brief glance, he named us and told us our home towns.

We figured it was some kind of set up because none of us had ever been close to the guy. I still can't figure it out, because nobody can do that.
Judge60 | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 1:46 am | #

wait a second... letting the Theology department become an institution which doesn't faithfully pass on the doctrines of the church? First of all, Pangborn, it is crucial to remember that it is a Theology department, not a department of Catechetics or Sunday school.

Just as with any other department, its goal was to objectively investigate not only its subject, but also its subject's history.

You didn't make any specific criticisms in your post, but I can only imagine that it has something to do with allowing Richard McBrien (who, interestingly, was quoted in the article). Despite the fact that he got himself into trouble with Ratzinger (whose ideas of Orthodoxy, I think, can rightly be described as "extremely narrow-minded"), one must admit that McBrien is a great scholar. Not only Catholicism, but also The Lives of the Popes are well-written, well-researched works of scholarship. Had ND let him go the moment Rome censured him, he would have gone somewhere else and published them. As it stands, he brought great international recognition to the Department as a place that would not be limited to serving as a mouth-piece to the Vatican, but rather is a department seriously interested in quality academic work.

Hesburgh protected his professors, even when they went astray from Ratzinger's idea of Orthodoxy because he knew that was what he needed to do in order to make ND a great university. He did it, and ND is now solidly recognized as top 25 by everything. I thank him for it. And something tells me that when he meets Jesus face-to-face the last thing they will be talking about is McBrien (or any other prof).

That's why theo 101 at ND begins with the "search for the historical Jesus," something the Catholic church was very uncomfortable with for a very long time. But it is the foundation of modern theology.
domer03inbmore | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 8:26 am | #

scratch that last paragraph from the record... I thought i had deleted that. Instead i guess i just typed around it. oops
domer03inbmore | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 8:27 am | #

Give me a break. Father Hesburgh's life has exemplified putting the principles of the Catholic faith into action (e.g., civil rights, ministering to the less fortunate, and so on).

As far as him having "answer to God" for not enforcing Catholic dogma with an iron fist, I never cease to be amazed at people who think they know precisely who must answer to God (and precisely WHAT they must answer for).
Scott | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 9:10 am | #

There have got to be better avenues of discussion re: Father Hesburgh than this. Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone.
Jay | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 9:39 am | #

On the subject of the Theology Department.... John P. Meier's work{3 volumes} A Marginal Jew:Rethinking the Historical Jesus is pretty riveting stuff.

While he came to ND after the Hesburgh era, much credit must be given to Father Ted for creating a fiscal as well as spiritual environment that would attract such scholars.
Dana Payne | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 10:17 am | #

Yeah, there really should be better places to talk about this. Is it fall yet?

Fr Ted is, has been, and always will be remembered and celebrated as a great man, priest, scholar, and leader who oversaw great things at Notre Dame and elsewhere in his life. We ALL have to answer for what we've done, & I'm sure Fr Hesburgh has done a few things he's regretted, like every other human being. But let's not focus on some phantom issue w/ allowing an academic dept to be run the way an adademic dept should be run (well put, domer03).

Instead, let's focus on what really matters: our communal love for / obsession w/ ND football and inability to get our fix (and, from that POV, Fr Ted's gotta have his "cloud reserved" in heaven if for no other reason than his leading Mary's University to 3 national titles during his presidency).

Seriously: is it fall yet?
BAIrish | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 10:30 am | #

So do we put Monk in a rain cloud?
Dana Payne | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 10:42 am | #

Actually not...Monk has one NC although you could say it was won with pre Monk players
Dana Payne | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 10:44 am | #

On the subject of the Theology Department.... John P. Meier's work{3 volumes} A Marginal Jew:Rethinking the Historical Jesus is pretty riveting stuff.

He's on sabbatical writing the fourth volume.

Hesburgh protected his professors, even when they went astray from Ratzinger's idea of Orthodoxy because he knew that was what he needed to do in order to make ND a great university. He did it, and ND is now solidly recognized as top 25 by everything

And Ratzinger has described Notre Dame as "a great Catholic University." Considering his current position, I don't think Notre Dame is in any danger of losing its Catholic bona fides.

BTW, Hesburgh tried to hire Ratzinger in the 60s-70s to teach, but Ratzinger declined, stating that he didn't feel his English language skills were good enough.
DJ | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 10:53 am | #

Ratzinger must be the only professor who delined to teach at ND because of a lack of mastery of the English language. When I was at ND, the entire Math Dept. was fresh-off-the-boat foreigners and I understood approximately 5% of what they said.
Voice in the Wilderness | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 1:03 pm | #

A little rememberance of my own:

My freshman year at ND (1994), I was reading the Catholic Study Bible for theo 101 in a study carrel on the 13th floor of the library, when an old man suddenly appeared over my shoulder. "Hi," I said. "Have you been to mass yet today," he asked? This was Sunday around noon, and I hadn't. "Come with me," he said. It wasn't until I saw the placard on the door of his office that it sunk in who this man was. I followed him into a small room off of a reception area. Inside there were two other students and an altar.

Long story short, Father Ted Hesburgh presided over mass. We each took a turn reading. The blessing of the eucharist had never been so personal and profound as it was that afternoon.

Afterwards, Father Ted showed us around his office and regaled us with stories of bygone days.

Looking back now, it seems like a dream. I can't believe that someday he won't be around.
Dave | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 9:32 pm | #

Sorry to change the subject but this made my day, Brandon Newman committed to ND today.

http://www.courier-journal.com/a...SPORTS/ 70526012

PHEW. Defensive line recruiting is such a need for us and we're finally filling in the holes both figuratively and, with Newman, literally.
jaisn | Email | Homepage | 05.26.07 - 11:32 pm | #

I know some (schools) won’t quit (recruiting) on me, but I’m happy I made the decision early and now I can have a good summer.”

This is a quote from Brandon Newman. I presume he is talking about schools like Florida. At least they cut down on the text messaging.
GB | Email | Homepage | 05.27.07 - 4:21 pm | #

Apparently the innovation in the D-ology department is going well.
indy | Email | Homepage | 05.27.07 - 7:46 pm | #

Also, rivals is reporting Newman has a 3.9 GPA. Looks like a great fit for the Irish on many levels. Welcome, Brandon.
indy | Email | Homepage | 05.27.07 - 7:49 pm | #

"Philosophy is the search for truth... not of what men have opined." - Saint Thomas Aquinas
Fighting Binny | Email | Homepage | 05.27.07 - 8:42 pm | #

Pangborn Violence,

Please send me an email. I'd like to discuss your post. I also share your concern about the Department of Theology (as a current major).

To not depart completely from football, I was playing Rakes today, and I can't wait for the season to start.

Go Irish! Beat Jackets!
Matthias | Email | Homepage | 05.27.07 - 9:59 pm | #

I got an F from one of my theo classes. I didn't realize it at the time but the prof was a liberation theology type. Very bad news - dropped you a letter grade each time you wrote "he" for god. She or he/she was acceptable.

Classes were in the Center for Social Concerns - that should have tipped me off.

I never met Fr Ted, but I was in the last class to get his signature on a diploma.

Anyone ever get a pic of him doing the shocker Monk style?
Kevin | Email | Homepage | 05.29.07 - 1:24 am | #

Kevin:

Don't forget "Women's Studies" or "Peace Studies" two other loaded terms.
Dana Payne | Email | Homepage | 05.29.07 - 5:29 pm | #