A few thoughts

Nobody is claiming Hesburgh is infallible, but Reilly's piece is, true to my understanding of what he typically does (the more inflammatory the claim, the more the extreme right wingers open their wallets for his group), a breathless jeremiad.

One easy to pick out example is him noting of the documentary that "It’s not even acknowledged that 83 Catholic bishops publicly opposed the Obama honors." No shit it's not acknowledged - why in God's name would it be when Hesburgh wasn't ND's President when Obama was invited and hadn't been for more than 2 decades? While the invitation from a decade ago continues to be an obsession of the likes of Reilly and Randall Terry, he tries to tie it in here as some count against Hesburgh without there being any basis for it.

And we have different views on Land o Lakes. If people find Notre Dame to be so heretical, then they can attend one of the schools that has the "blessing" of the Cardinal Newman Society like Franciscan or the University of Dallas. I know people that went to some of the schools on their pure list (of which Notre Dame is not included) - they all would have attended Notre Dame in a heartbeat if they could have gotten in. Would you want your kids to go to one of those schools over Notre Dame? Do you wish you had gone to one of those schools instead? The school somehow lost its soul by climbing into the ranks of a top 20 national university? Really?

Do you really think the school would be better off today under the control of bishops, many of whom recent history has shown, were such poor stewards of their own dioceses that they spent decades moving around pedophile priests who were then free to rape more children? I think the overwhelming majority of alums would say no. But moving out from under their control is reflective of ND losing its soul? Come on...

I think the piece posted by GK was at least reflective of the pros and cons of Hesburgh from a conservative perspective. I don't agree with all of it, but can see an attempt at a balanced approach showing that Hesburgh, as you correctly note, "was not infallible". This piece certainly did not ever intend to take a fair view.