de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  0:00  
This is Episode 26 of Ethics and Culture Cast from the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

Welcome to Episode 26 of Ethics and Culture Cast. I'm Ken Hallenius, the communications specialist at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. In this episode, we chat with Father Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C., a professor of history at Notre Dame and the author of "American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame's Father Ted Hesburgh."

Fr. Miscbamble is a long-time friend of the de Nicola Center, speaking at several of our fall conferences over the years, as well as giving the invocation at the inaugural presentation of the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae medal for heroes of the pro life movement. We recorded this conversation in his book-lined office in Decio Hall. Let's head across campus for this fascinating conversation.

Well, Father, Bill, thank you very much for letting me come and chat with you today.

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  1:32  
Pleasure to be with you, Ken.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  1:33  
So knowing that you're not a South Bend native, as I can discern from your accent, tell us a bit about how you originally came to Notre Dame.

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  1:42  
I'll try and give you the short version, Ken, that I came in two stages if you will. The first time I came as a doctoral student to get a PhD in history here at Notre Dame, and that occurred--Can you believe?--way back in 1976. And the reason I came to Notre Dame was a very specific reason. I met a professor from Notre Dame, Professor Vincent de Santas, my beloved mentor. He was in Australia on a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Queensland. And around the time that I was looking at, I had developed an interest in American history. I was looking to come to the United States, and he said, come to Notre Dame and work with me. So he arranged a fellowship for me and I ended up coming here in August of 1976. And then to cut this long story a little shorter as possible. I studied, I did well here, finished up, went back to Australia at the end of 1979. I was here for three and a half years, went back to Australia. And I worked for a couple of years. I was a lay student, of course when I came the first time.

So I worked in Canberra, Australia's capital for the Office of National assessments. Sounds a little bit of a suspect organization, doesn't it? It was a little intelligence unit think tank in the Prime Minister's department. And we did sort of analytic work about what was going on in international politics and so on. So I did that. My area, of course, is US foreign policy, US diplomatic history. I did that for a couple of years. And it was during my the end of my first year that the director general of that place, sent me back over to the US just to catch up on things, how things were going. And I had had thoughts of priesthood. This is blending into my vocation story, how I ended up here. I'd given some thought to the diocesan priesthood in Australia, but I think I had seen modeled for me here especially by another great friend and mentor of mine, Father Thomas Plants. I had been a teaching, I've been a TA for him, a teaching assistant. And Plants, Father Plants showed me a way of serving as a priest, teacher, scholar, that this is making sense of my life in retrospect that I thought God was calling me to. So on that trip back here, still working for the ONA, I met with Father Plants and poured out my thoughts and my heart to him and said, you know, is this even a possibility, and Plants said he would look into it, and he hoped that it would be. 

So about a year later, I ended up coming back to enter the formation program in the congregation of Holy Cross. So I entered Moreau Seminary, that was in August of '82. I was ordained in April of '88. And I'd already begun teaching in the history department before ordination, toward my Deacon year. And I've been here at Notre Dame and teaching away as best I can, since then. So that's the the broad story of how I got here, I came as a doctoral student, went back home and worked for a time in Australia, then came back to enter the congregation of Holy Cross. And I'm a priest in the order associated with Notre Dame as most of your listeners would know. 

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  5:27  
Well, you are a longtime friend of the founding director of the Center for Ethics and Culture, Professor David Solomon. How did he rope you into the work of the Center?

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  5:38  
Look, that's a good question, Ken. That's a very good question. David is pretty skilled at roping people into things. Now, in the 1990s. I was deeply involved in the history department, and poured enormous amounts of my energies into the history department per se. I was director of graduate study, I got tenure in '92, or something like that, and became Director of Graduate Studies for a couple of years. And then I chaired the department. And so a lot of my efforts were placed directly into the history department. And during that time, I was very involved in a campus wide conversation about Catholic mission, and in particular, about hiring, hiring faculty who are committed to the Catholic mission of Notre Dame. And in that milieu, I met David and knew him as a philosopher, but I was in the history department, he was in philosophy et cetera, et cetera. 

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  6:52  
And never the twain should meet. 

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  6:53  
Well, not exactly, you know, but it wasn't, it wasn't that we were seeing each other as regularly. But when I finished up as Chair, went off on sabbatical, and I quickly then got caught into serving as rector of our seminary. I was rector of Moreau Seminary, I think during a time when some of those priests who I still think of as young priests, but you would have known them during your time at U.P. and subsequently they were going through, so folks like Stephen and Jim Gallagher, and Pete McCormick, and so on. So I was over there. But David was getting the Center for Ethics and Culture up and running. And I lent what limited support I could, from the sort of distance of running the seminary program and so on. But it was especially, especially after I finished my term as Rector, came back to my full time teaching at the university, that I had much more flexibility in my own schedule. And I began to get much more involved with, in those early days when the Vita Institute was getting underway. As early, I was sort of like an unofficial chaplain for the group. And, of course, our bonds and connections were already very tight. But with all the challenges involved in the protest of the Obama, President Obama being granted an honorary degree, we, we became comrades in arms. 

But that challenging and difficult experience really cemented a bond, that, you know, David, he's such a remarkable and great person who got the center up and running such that it's, such an important place for the overall Catholic mission of the university, but for keeping alive our whole pro-life mission here on this campus, and for giving our students that sense that they can get an education in virtue, that Catholic education involves more than just getting some technical mastery of a particular subject. It's it's an education for, for the whole person, for the mind and the heart, as Father Moreau would say. So that's one of the blessings of my life that David got me involved in the work of the center and that we were able to do some things together, that I was able to play a small part in trying to assist him in the work that he did that's laid the foundation for the kind of work that you're doing now.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  9:46  
Well, let's talk a bit about your new book, "American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame's Father Ted Hesburgh." So as an academic historian, how did you get the idea to tackle a biography of a man whom you personally knew and lived alongside?

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  10:04  
Yes, this book, I must say, Ken, has, in a certain sense, been a long time in the making. It was back, as I mentioned, in the 1990s, when there was debate and discussion on campus about Catholic mission and faculty hiring and things like this, that as a historian, I began to ask myself, how is it that we have got to this situation and circumstance where it was clear, some folks didn't want Catholic mission to mean that much, so much, it was certainly a contested area, what should it mean, etc. And being a historian, I sort of thought, Okay, how has this come to pass? What has happened over the preceding decades that this is now such a contested issue? And from thinking about that, the idea of thinking about Father Hesburgh's own role, and from that thinking, well, who was this man? And do we understand him well? And at that point, there was not a full biography. There had been books on Father Hesburgh, but not like a full biography. Subsequently, a fine chap named Michael O'Brien wrote a biography of Father Ted. That was published about 10 or so years ago, I think back in 2005. But this is at the time when I'm first thinking about so this one, I'm going to tell you, this book was a long time in gestation. I was seated in this very office 

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  11:52  
Where the magic is happening right now. 

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  11:54  
Where the magic is happening right now, one night in 1994. In the in the preface to this book, I give a little summary of my relationship with Father Ted. And I said to myself, I'm going to let Father Ted know I'm going to write about him at some point. And I walked over to his office, his office was then on the 13th floor of the library, of the Hesburgh library. And I told him, this is what I was going to do. But of course, I was chairing the history department. I had a lot of other things on my plate. I also told him, look, I won't have the time or the opportunity for some years to do it. But I want to make you aware that I intend to do it. And then I asked him a big favor, would you be open to being interviewed by me now, I knew that I wanted to get access to him, while his mind was still sharp, his memory was good. And we eventually agreed to do that. So I interviewed him. And this book is heavily reliant, not totally, but heavily reliant on these interviews I did with him over a series of successive nights. Father Ted was a night person.

We went up to Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin, and over a series of six successive nights, starting around 9pm and going sometimes until one or 2am, we had these lengthy conversations. So I had this material, and then was gathering material, doing research, reading, etc, etc. But it was always my plan that I would write his full life. And I had other projects that I completed, it was only towards the very end of his life, in 2014 to 2015, I began in a very serious way, organizing my material, because he died in 2015. In 2016-2017, I had a sabbatical. I spent it writing hard, I was out in New Haven, and I worked extremely hard, wrote the bulk of the manuscript. Came back in that following fall semester, finished the writing, and then it's been going through the editing process. 2018, now into 2019. 

So that's a long winded description of the writing process and the timing of it. But it grew out, the desire to write about him, grew out of this desire to understand better what had taken place at Notre Dame. And readers, who I hope will pick up the book, are going to learn a lot about Father Hesburgh. But they also will learn a lot about the Notre Dame journey over this time, and how the institution has changed. And what are the kinds of issues that it confronted, the book essentially tries to tell two stories. The one is Father Ted's leadership of Notre Dame. And the second is his outside involvement, his workings in the various presidential administrations, his associations, various Popes, etc. So, once I got into it, I knew that I had a fascinating story that I needed to tell, and I hope your listeners might read the book and appreciate the story that I've told.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  15:35  
Well, and it took basically 25 years from conception to publication.

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  15:40  
That's, yeah, from the time that I conceived of it until the time we have a book, right between us here in our hands, it did take close to that time. I wasn't working on it for all of that time. But that's from when I first conceived to completing the book. It's been in my mind, and I've been thinking about him and the topics it considers over that period.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  16:08  
But what are, in your view, a few of the real highlights of Father Ted's presidency. 

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  16:15  
Okay, now, this book, which, you know, I've titled "American Priest," as I say, looks both at what I call the internal story, his work here at Notre Dame. So I mentioned a couple of aspects from that. And then mentioned a couple of aspects from the what I call the external story, his workings for the nation, for the church, etc. Perhaps I'll start with the latter. There's no doubt that his work on the Civil Rights Commission is an extremely important contribution. He is working to try and redress the terrible system of segregation that had many African Americans in second class status. And that's an enormous and important contribution that he makes. And if there was nothing else to his record, it would be an extremely honorable one because of that. He's involved in a variety of other things, the beginnings, early stages of the Peace Corps, he works with Gerald Ford on the Clemency Board, trying to reconcile the nation and help heal the wounds after the Vietnam War, et cetera. He always put down as one of his most significant efforts, his efforts to try and counter the risk of nuclear war, particularly in the 1980s. But while he put a lot of energy into that, I'm not sure that it was a contribution in any way comparable to say his civil rights contribution, but they would be some things on the sort of external areas. 

Now, Father Ted always said the two big things that, you know, he's wanted to be sort of remembered for were one having Notre Dame go co-ed, as, as an undergraduate institution, become a co-ed University. And there's no doubt that has been a major and transforming decision for Notre Dame. He oversaw it, I show some of the complexities of that decision making. It wasn't that he got up one day and said, We're going co-ed. You know, there were long decisions to merge with St. Mary's, and various avenues were explored. And not all of them were pursued, etc, before they eventually got around. But that was an extremely important decision, a decision that I would at least raise some some flags about, was his claim that he had turned the university over to lay control. This was clearly overstating what took place. It was a move from ownership by the congregation of Holy Cross to a kind of shared governance, six Holy Cross priests, six lay persons constitute the Fellows of Notre Dame, the institutional owners of the university are the Fellows, a Holy Cross priest has to be the president of the university, etc. But nonetheless, Hesburgh allowed for much greater lay participation. And that was an important contribution to be sure. 

I raise in this book, some questions about his leadership of the university in a couple of areas. There's no doubt he's an extraordinary institution builder, brilliant, practical leadership, he raised the money, he built the buildings, he set Notre Dame on a path of growth, et cetera. But this goes back to the very time when I set out to write something about him, it was being such a contested thing about Catholic mission. And I would say that one of the challenges of Father Hesburgh's time was our becoming more and more a place that wanted to simply measure ourselves over against the leading secular universities. But when you do that, you're likely to adopt the very criteria that they use to measure themselves. And in this, it's a complex process, Ken, I'm not saying it's a simple but in this process, you can begin to lose the distinctive qualities of a Catholic University. 

Now, Father Hesburgh was always aiming that Notre Dame be a great Catholic University. That was his ambition. And he certainly preserved lots of elements of Catholicism around Notre Dame, what my colleague Fred Fredoso would call the neighborhood, the Basilica, the choirs, the chapels in the dorms, Mass attendance, etc. Also very important. Single sex dorms, etc, etc. Also very important, but, but, -a big but- the academic heart of the institution began to travel down a somewhat more conforming direction to what might have been the standard offerings in other places. That's the contest that we're involved in at Notre Dame right now, how to make sure that this institution just doesn't travel down the path of so many other Protestant schools that, you know, Harvard, Yale, Duke, USC, all these places were Protestant schools, and now have lost any semblance of religious identity, we don't want to follow down their path, we want to maintain our distinct Catholic identity. That's the challenging area. And while Father Ted was aware of it, I think he certainly didn't resolve all the issues associated with that complex question.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  22:38  
Well, one early theme in your book is the conflict between Notre Dame's old guard and the rising generation of priests like Father Ted. Now, you've had a special perch from which to both witness and oversee the formation of what will become the next generation of senior leadership at Notre Dame during your ministry as head of Moreau Seminary, as you mentioned. Do you see a potential recurrence of this conflict between old guard and new guard on the horizon?

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  23:06  
Yes, well, just to comment first about the generational shift that Father Ted was involved in. You're absolutely right to point out that he felt very much when he arrived here in 1946, like he'd been a seminarian here in the 30s. And then went off to Rome, but because of the war back to Catholic University, finished up his studies there, back here, and in '46. He felt very much he was part of this younger generation that would have to supplant this older, more sort of crusty group. And he was very fortunate in that Father Hugh O'Donnell finished his term as president and was replaced by Father John Cavanaugh, a very important figure in the history of Notre Dame. He's a sort of transitional figure, who eased things for Father Hesburgh. So Cavanaugh was the one who recruits the young Father Hesburgh, to be executive vice president.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  24:17  
A newly created position. 

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  24:18  
Yeah, 1949. And so Hesburgh, while he has tensions with some of the remnants of what might be called the old guard, he has sort of quick success. That was in a day, Ken, that was in a day, when the Holy Cross order, in many ways did determine a lot of the direction of Notre Dame. Today, we are much smaller in terms of our representation in the overall institution, which has grown so much. The necessary task for Holy Cross is not, is not to have a sort of a generational conflict, it's to cohere better about how Holy Cross can influence Notre Dame for the good. My own concern would be that the young up-and-coming members of the order, be given roles and responsibilities, so they can be trained for leadership, so that they can take on important roles. I hope that's something that the present leadership is looking into. I hope they are. But that's about what I have to say on that point.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  25:38  
I do have a small question. In the introduction to your book, you note that when you first spoke to Father Ted there in October of 1994, about writing his biography, you proposed the title, "America's Priest," and the book is published as "American," "American Priest." First, what's the significance of the title from your perspective? And then, is there any message conveyed in the subtle change between America's priest and American priest?

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  26:09  
Yes, well, when I set out and I took over that very first night. I had a typed sheet in which I had written on it, "America's Priest," apostrophe "S", and he signed that. That's a treasure that I have, I had some conception, that he was in some way a sort of priest for the whole nation, the whole nation. But subsequent to my proceeding on into making the title change. A book, a biography was published of Billy Graham, the great evangelical Protestant and, you know, crusade leader, etc. And it was titled, "America's Pastor," America's pastor, you know, Billy Graham worked, evangelical Protestantism, or whatever it was. And on reading that book, I saw that Graham had a much broader role, and was known to many more folk in a curious way than Father Ted was. Father Ted was known to the Notre Dame family, which is large and extensive. But then he was very much more an inside player, with the Civil Rights Commission, and so on. And it began to dawn on me, he's a classic American figure. Father Ted believed if you can get a group of good people together, they can solve any problem. That's a deeply American conviction, that if people of goodwill are willing to work hard at a project, they can bring about a good result. And that was the kind of style and approach he brought to civil rights and to a whole variety of other issues. His very Americanness came through. Similarly, in higher education, he believed that the American way of doing things was superior. And he didn't want anyone in Rome or the Vatican, telling him how to run a university, because he knew how to run an American University. 

So perhaps it wasn't one big decision. But over time, I began to see it as more accurate to reference him as an American priest. He is this American figure. He loved the United States so much. He loved responding to a call from the President of the United States to help on some issue or question. And his patriotism was very deep. So I just felt it was more accurate to use American priest rather than to sort of claim that somehow, or rather, he had been minister to the whole of the country. I hope my readers will understand the distinction after they get through the book. You have to read the whole book, dear readers.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  29:37  
Well, Father Bill, thank you kindly for your time. And congratulations.

Fr. Wilson Miscamble  29:41  
Thank you so much, Ken. It's a pleasure to be with you. Really appreciate it.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture  29:50  
Thank you to Father Bill for the excellent conversation. Find the links to his new book "American Priest," as well as his earlier books, and Fall Conference presentations, in the show notes. Subscribe to Ethics and Culture Cast so that you can always get the latest episodes by visiting ethicscenter.nd.edu/podcast. We would love your feedback. Please give us a review wherever you get your podcasts, and email your suggestions to cecpodcast@nd.edu. Our theme music is "I Dunno" by grapes, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. We'll see you next time on Ethics and Culture Cast. Until then, make good decisions.

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