This volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the life and legacy of Father Theodore Hesburgh (1917–2015), an educator, priest, public servant, and long-serving President of the University of Notre Dame. Despite being a transformative figure in Catholic higher education who led the University of Notre Dame for 35 years and wielded influence with US presidents on civil rights and other charged issues of his era, secular accounts of history often neglect to assess the efforts of religious figures such as Hesburgh. In this volume, the editors and their authors turn a fair-minded but critical eye to the priest's record to evaluate where he fits into the long development of Catholic higher education and Catholics' role in American public life.