…or at least, its legendary former President, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh. The Wall Street Journal sat down for a chat with this 91-year-old icon recently.

A snip:

WSJ: In your day, the Church produced figures such as Bishop Sheen and Father Drinan and Pope John XXIII. Who are the Catholic leaders today of their caliber? Are there any?

Father Hesburgh: That’s a fair question. I’m not in a position to come up with an answer, but I have my ideas about it. I think somehow, either in the educational system for clergy or in the kind of people we attract to the clergy, we are going to have to take a very close look at that, because whatever we’re doing, let’s say it’s not working. The number of Catholic clergymen is going down, and the same is probably true of many other churches. It’s one of the key problems that exists in our country, and we ought to find a way of getting at that problem.

The Catholic Church, like any other human organization, depends on leadership, and leadership depends on performance. If you look for leaders in a given group and you don’t find them, something is wrong. When you had leaders, such as you just mentioned, a few decades ago, I have to say the Church seemed more vital to most people, even to people outside the church.

Is the lack of leadership why the Church ended up in the priests’ scandal?

Father Hesburgh: Everything is part of an organic whole, and the scandal is one aspect. I wouldn’t want to be personally buffaloed about whether there was a scandal, because there is no question there was. The answer is to find a different caliber of training and of selection and of inspiration of young men going into priesthood. And I think, more and more, women have to be involved in this, and I suspect that in the long run, married people are going to be a lot more involved in this whole problem than we have today.

It has to evolve over time. I have no problem with females or married people as priests, but I realize that the majority of the leadership in the Church would. But what’s important is that people get the sacraments. You have to remember, there were married priests, even married popes, in the first 1,000 years of the church.

Why were you, a priest, selected for all those appointments in the 1950s and 1960s?

I have no idea.

It happened that in 1954 I got a call from President Eisenhower at the White House asking if I would go on the commission being set up. He said they were going to set up a special board and would I be on it. The board would run the fledgling National Science Foundation. I said, “I’ve been interested in science all my life, although I have a doctorate in theology.”

I come from a philosophical and theological, intellectual background. The fellow who was calling, the president’s assistant, said, “Well, President Eisenhower would like to have a philosophical and theological presence on the National Science Board.”

I said, “Well, in that case, I’d be very happy to try, and I’ll probably learn a great deal,” which is what happened.

You wrote that you and the popes you represented at the IAEA had deep appreciation of the sciences. Now, a movement, supported by some Catholics, is fighting the teaching of evolution.

I have no problem at all with evolution. The Bible gives a familiar account of creation, which is not a historical account about six days, but a way of ordering the story, which fits perfectly with the scientific belief in evolution. It didn’t take place in six days, but took place over millions and millions of years.

I think God can create in any way he wants. If he wants to create through an evolutionary process, it wouldn’t happen without him, because he has to put beings there in the first place. But it could be a very simple kind of life, and it could evolve, as I think it did, through various, different, more-complicated organisms until eventually you get to a point where there is a human being. That requires at least one act of God, to create an immortal soul. Evolution can’t create a spiritual and immortal moral soul. So God had to do that. He did it at the appropriate time. And man continued to evolve until we got to where we are today.

I’m not afraid of science, because the more I learn from science, the more I learn about God and His creation.

Is there a problem today you’d love to get your hands on?

I think we ought to solve the problem of immigration. It’s one of the key problems today. I think I had the answer because, remember, I was chairman of the Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. I had two wonderful guys on the commission: Sen. Teddy Kennedy and Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. We became very good friends, and they were with me, and we had the solution.

I proposed a simple process: We say to everyone illegal here in America, if you’ve been here five years or more and you’ve had no problem with the law, you’re working steady on a job, and you don’t get any benefits because you have a false Social Security number and you’ll never get the benefits you’re contributing to, all you have to do is show up to the local authorities wherever you live and say, “I would like to be an American citizen.” Then we will immediately put you on the track for citizenship. You’ll have to take the courses required, and you’ll have pass the exams.

I would say that if you put that program in, you can even cut back on the number coming in for a while until you get that problem solved. Once that problem is solved, I think I’d be a little more liberal on the number coming in. But you solve that problem first.

What would you tell the next president to do?

I think we ought to take a good look, a deep look, at all of our elementary and secondary education procedures, and figure out a way that all can agree on to make sure that once youngsters enter the system, no matter how poor or what nationality or what color — it’s irrelevant because they’re American citizens — that they ought to be put on a track to give them at least a good high-school degree. Also, to get an increasing number of them going on to college and getting a good college degree. That would make our nation stronger and better. If we keep not doing something about the education of our children, we’re putting failure at the heart of America, rather than success.

You’ve known a lot of leaders. What qualities do the best ones possess?

First they have to have intelligence, because leadership has to do with ideas, to be able to see the problems and see solutions to problems, and to see new opportunities to create a better nation, better schools, better business, better everything. Better civic life. Then, the kind of dedication to not just live your own narrow little life with its narrow interests, but to be willing to contribute something to the commonweal.

There’s much more at the WSJ link, so take a look.