Theodore Hesburgh, the longtime president of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, died February 26 at age 97.

For more than 50 years, he engaged is­sues such as civil rights, nuclear weap­ons, and abortion.

The National Cath­olic Reporter wrote that in 1968 he said, “Theology must be free, for it will be ac­cepted as a true university discipline only if operates under the same kind of freedom and autonomy as do other disciplines.”

He was ordained as a priest of the Con­gregation of the Holy Cross in 1943 and became president of Notre Dame in 1952. He held the position for 35 years. He received the Presidential Medal of Free­dom in 1964, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2000. He was a founding member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and marched with Martin Luther King Jr.

At Notre Dame, NCR reported, he “was not able to find a balance between the male and female faculty, for the latter complained of unequal treatment and opportunities.”

Michael Wear, who served in the Obama White House, met Hesburgh when Presi­dent Obama accepted an invitation to de­liver the commencement address at Notre Dame in 2009, sparking protests because of Obama’s support of abortion rights.

“Hesburgh believed providing space for different viewpoints was a testament to one’s confidence in his or her beliefs,” Wear wrote. —Religion News Service, added sources