A man who helped Pope Paul VI fulfill a dream of a place where people from all nations could get together to study peace says his heart bleeds for what's happening in the Middle East.

Maureen McFadden sat down Wednesday for a conversation with Notre Dame's Father Theodore Hesburgh to talk about a place he knows well.

Just miles from the violence in the Gaza Strip sits an ecumenical institute for peace in Jerusalem that Father Hesburgh helped found in 1972.

He told Maureen he has offered it to Notre Dame Graduate and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a safe haven to broker peace.

"I have to say even today it is the only peaceful place I know of in that area," said Father Hesburgh. "I've told Condi Rice, who is an old friend of mine, that if you get to a point where you can get the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians and others to sit down and talk peace we will turn the whole place over to you."

"Our diplomatic people know that it's there and Condi did visit the place and she had her assistant make an assessment of it," Father Hesburgh continued. "If they need one place in the Holy Land where they can sit and talk peace and not be at risk."

"It may be a dream of mine but the whole place has been a dream of mine since the Pope mentioned it," he said.

Father Hesburgh hopes and prays for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians but knows it's difficult to overcome centuries of hatred.

"Anything human is possible, but humans being as ornery as they are and caught up in ancient hatreds, all of that has to be cast aside," Father Hesburgh said.

Maureen spoke with Father Hesburgh at length about the Middle East, President-elect Obama, the economy and civil rights.

Stay with NewsCenter 16 in the coming weeks to hear more of her conversations with Father Hesburgh.