Former Notre Dame president honored

SOUTH BEND – The moon was rising over the Wisconsin lake where the six men had spent the day fishing when they sat down in the cool pine-scented air to work on 10 resolutions that would lay the groundwork for changing the future of race relations in America.\nThree of the men were Democrats, three were Republicans. Half were from the North, the other half, from the South. The members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had heard hours of testimony about race relations in the U.S. in 1957. They then reached a near unanimous agreement on the resolutions so swiftly that President Eisenhower called them to the White House to find out how they did it.\n“I said, ‘Mr. President, you appointed six fishermen and we wrote that report after a wonderful day of fishing in Wisconsin where we caught a lot of big bass,’” said the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh. “He said, ‘Golly, I better put more fishermen on.’ He said, ‘Can I go fishing up there?’”\nWelcome to the office of “Father Ted,” the charming priest who spent 35 years, until 1987, leading the University of Notre Dame, traveling the world and serving presidents and popes and witnessing history.\nHesburgh is 90 years old now, but still comes to his office in the library named after him nearly every day to visit with students, alumni and anyone else who wants to stop by for some advice, to chat or to hear a piece of the history he has seen.\nThe university honored Hesburgh for his career at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington on Tuesday. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Notre Dame graduate, was a scheduled speaker.\nThe gallery was recognizing Hesburgh’s social activism by accepting a photo of him and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into its permanent collection. The photo shows them holding hands in solidarity during a 1964 civil rights rally against segregated housing in Chicago. A copy of the photo hangs outside Hesburgh’s office.\nThe man who says he wanted to simply become a Navy chaplain always seemed to be called to greater things.\nAfter being ordained in 1943, he was told to get his doctorate at Catholic University. After completing a four-year course in two years, he again asked whether he could become a Navy chaplain and instead was told he would start teaching six classes at Notre Dame in two days.\nHe was appointed head of the religion department three years later, the university’s executive vice president in 1949 and the school’s 15th president three years later.\nHe still celebrates Mass daily. He walks with a cane and his sight is failing, so he depends on students to come by and read newspapers and magazines to him. A voracious reader, Hesburgh listens to 20 to 25 books on tape a month.\n“I read widely. Everything under the sun,” he said. “Fiction, nonfiction, science, history, autobiographies, the works, I just read across the board.”\nJust like when he was university president, he still answers every piece of mail he receives and talks to the many people who call him.\n“The phone is almost a nuisance because it’s ringing all the time. But again. I’m not griping about it. It’s good to keep interested rather than crawl up in a hole and die,” he said.