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Short biography of Father Hesburgh

At a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, President Clinton joined House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Strom Thurmond, the 97-year-old president pro tempore of the Senate, in presenting Notre Dame’s president emeritus the Congressional Gold Medal.

The award recognizes highest contributions to the nation and has been given to only 122 individuals in history. The list includes Jonas Salk, the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindburgh, Jessie Owens, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Bob Hope, Nelson Mandela and Thomas Edison. Hesburgh is the first from higher education.

Clinton took time out from the Middle East peace talks at Camp David to speak in honor of Hesburgh, whom he said he and wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, got to know several years before they came to Washington. He described Hesburgh as "a man I admire very much — a servant and child of God, a genuine American patriot and a citizen of the world" and said the priest’s greatness and achievements were rooted in his faith and his understanding of "our common humanity and our common tie as children of God."

Hesburgh’s extensive record of public service includes 15 presidential appointments. He was an original member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1957 and served as chairman of the commission from 1969-72. He stepped down as president of Notre Dame in 1987 after 35 years but has remained active in public affairs, including trips in recent months to the Middle East as a member of a group established by the Wye Plantation Treaty and to Kosovo on a U.N. fact-finding mission on refugees.

In his address to the crowd, the 83-year-old appeared vigorous but also deeply moved. He said that rather than a prepared speech, the occasion called for him to speak from the heart, "which is hard to do when your heart is in your throat."

He thought back to what he said the happiest day in his life, when he was ordained a priest in Sacred Heart Church.

"As I lay stretched out there on my face in the sanctuary . . . I have to say that I was filled with the Holy Spirit, who fortunately has stayed with me all these 57 years. And I was filled with the conviction that I wasn’t being ordained for myself. I was an instrument — hopefully in the hand of God. I wasn’t to think that I simply belonged to Catholics, I belonged to every human being. I was not just to be a friend of Catholics but to be a friend of everyone, believer or nonbeliever. And I would not just try to be interested in this or that particular cause but in everything that affected justice and everything that affected peace."

Of the praise heaped on himself at the ceremony by Indiana’s congressional delegation, Father Malloy and others, he said he was reminded of a quote by Adlai Stevenson, who said, "‘It’s okay to hear yourself praised, as long as you don’t inhale it.’"

"My dear friends," he promised. "I will try not to inhale it."

The Congressional Gold Medal came 36 years after Hesburgh received from President Lyndon Johnson the government’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his work as an educator and humanitarian. He also holds 144 honorary degrees, the most of any person in history.

The only other Notre Dame graduate to receive the Congressional Gold Medal was Dr. Thomas Dooley in 1961.

Photo by Carol Powers

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