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Edited on Sun Feb-04-07 07:59 PM by Mass
GPO's PDF
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Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today we pay our respects to a great son of Massachusetts who passed away on Sunday, an inspiration to me and a leader beloved by many, Father Robert Drinan.
In all his life's endeavors, from the church pulpit to the halls of Congress to the classroom, Father Drinan was guided by a firm and unwavering moral compass. He lived out in public life the whole cloth of Catholic teachings.
In religion and politics alike, he followed his sense that we are all put on this Earth for something greater than ourselves. Wherever he went, he was led there by a concern for the weak, the helpless, the downtrodden. In religion and politics alike, that was his calling.
And as he walked between these worlds, on a path unique in our Nation's history, he was always unmistakably and wonderfully true to himself.
Father Drinan was a forever gentle, resilient, tenacious advocate for social justice and fundamental decency. In the most divisive days of Vietnam, when things were coming apart, this incredible man, this most unlikely of candidates, showed America how a man of faith could be a man of peace.
As a politician, Father Drinan is best remembered for his spirited opposition to the Vietnam war. That's what brought him to Congress in the first place and it is how our paths first crossed. In 1970, after we first met as opponents in the Peoples' Caucus, I was honored to support, campaign, and to work with and learn from committed Democrats like Jerome Grossman, John Marttila, Tom Kiley, John Hurley, and Tom Vallely. Together, many of these committed activists would spend the next decades championing the great progressive causes that marked the Drinan campaign.
Father Drinan's slogan was ``Father Knows Best.'' I began studying law at Boston College--where Father Drinan had been the youngest law school Dean in the country--while he was down here, in Congress, making law, and making history.
Father Drinan's testimony against the war was remarkably powerful. He toured jails in Saigon and met a South Vietnamese politician there who had been jailed after placing second in an
election. In the religious language of just war doctrine and the plain language of common decency, he helped us to see the flaws of our policy in Vietnam and urged the Church to speak out with great moral authority.
And even before his own words found their way into FBI files, even before his own name made its way onto Nixon's enemies list, Father Drinan was a champion for dissent and he had a special understanding of the obligations of patriotism. He helped eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the scene of one of the Cold War's ugliest chapters. He met with famous Soviet dissidents like Sharansky and Sakharov and founded the National Interreligious Task Force for Soviet Jewry. Angered by the treatment of Soviet dissidents, he was the first Congressman to call for a boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
And he sought to hold the President of the United States accountable for his behavior. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he questioned witnesses in the Watergate hearings. But even before then he became the first Congressman to urge the impeachment of President Nixon, not for the Watergate coverup but for the illegal bombing of Cambodia. That, he thought, was the far greater crime. ``Can we be silent about this flagrant violation of the Constitution?'' he asked. ``Can we impeach a president for concealing a burglary but not for concealing a massive bombing?''
After 10 years in Congress, Father Drinan was forced to choose between the two passions of his life: politics and the Catholic Church. He chose to remain in the priesthood and spent the rest of his life outside government as a passionate advocate for human rights and a much-loved law professor. ``As a person of faith,'' he said, ``I must believe that there is work for me to do which somehow will be more important than the work I am required to leave.''
As president of the Americans for Democratic Action, he traveled and spoke widely on hunger, civil liberties and the dangers of the nuclear arms race. He cofounded the Lawyers' Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control, and served as vice chair of the ACLU's National Advisory Council and a member of the Helsinki Watch Committee.
Father Drinan's life of political activism was in the best tradition of what it means to be a Jesuit--love of learning and a commitment to justice. Jesuits were among the first to speak out against the Vietnam war and later against illegal interventions in Central America. As a professor and an activist, Father Drinan lived the ideals of his faith.
Asked about his activism, Father Drinan once said ``it goes back to the fact that you're a Christian and a Jesuit. ..... It means you have to love each other and that you can't persecute people. You have to be compassionate to everyone in the world.'' It was as simple as that for him. When asked if he was planning to slow down in old age, Drinan recently told a reporter, ``Jesuits don't ordinarily retire. You just do what you do.''
His leadership helped give a new moral authority to the antiwar movement, and he was a mentor to a generation of Massachusetts politicians. People like BARNEY FRANK, who stepped into Father Drinan's congressional seat with big shoes to fill--and has spent the last 25 years there honoring Father Drinan's legacy with his own dogged fight for social justice.
Father Drinan leaves behind a sister-in-law, three nieces, over 6,000 adoring students, legions of supporters in the fourth district of Massachusetts, and those across the State and the Nation whose lives he touched.
Father Drinan once said, ``If people are really Christians, they are involved in life, and politics is part of life. I feel if a person is really a Christian, he will be in anguish over global hunger, injustice, over the denial of educational opportunity.'' It was the defining mission of his truly remarkable life.
And the resolution that was voted by the Senate
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 66) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 66
Whereas the Reverend Robert F. Drinan, S.J. was a talented scholar, who received a bachelor's degree in 1942 and a master's degree in 1947 from Boston College, a bachelor's degree in law in 1949 and a master of law degree in 1951 from Georgetown University, and a doctorate in theology in 1954 from Gregorian University in Rome, Italy;
Whereas Father Drinan entered the Society of Jesus in 1942, completed his seminary work at Weston College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1953;
Whereas Father Drinan was an influential educator who served as the Dean of the Boston College Law School from 1956 to 1970 and transformed it into one of the leading educational institutions in the United States;
Whereas Father Drinan was elected in 1970 to represent Massachusetts in the House of Representatives;
Whereas Father Drinan represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1981, the first Roman Catholic priest ever to serve in Congress as a voting Member;
Whereas Father Drinan, during his service in the House of Representatives, was an advocate for social justice, a fighter for civil rights, and a champion in the cause of international human rights;
Whereas Father Drinan drew on his legal expertise to make significant contributions in the areas of copyright law reform, consumer protection, and criminal justice;
Whereas Father Drinan renewed his commitment to education, after his service in Congress, as a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he specialized in constitutional law and human rights and taught more than 6,000 students;
Whereas Father Drinan was the founder and faculty adviser to the Georgetown Journal of legal Ethics and was the author of 12 books on major public policy issues;
Whereas Father Drinan was the recipient of 22 honorary degrees and was a visiting professor at 4 universities;
Whereas Father Drinan's service led the American Bar Association (ABA) to award him the ABA Medal in 2004, the organization's highest honor, given to individuals who make exceptionally distinguished contributions to the jurisprudence of the United States; and
Whereas Father Drinan's lifelong leadership in promoting greater awareness of the importance of international human rights resulted in 2006 in the establishment by the Georgetown University Law Center of an endowed chair in his honor, known as the Robert F. Drinan, S.J. Chair in Human Rights Law: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) honors the life, achievements, and distinguished career of the Reverend Robert F. Drinan, S.J.;
(2) offers its appreciation for Father Drinan's devoted work on behalf of the thousands of Massachusetts residents he represented in the House of Representatives and the millions of people worldwide who benefitted from his human rights initiatives; and
(3) expresses its condolences to Father Drinan's family and friends.
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