[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 125 (Thursday, September 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10507-S10508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF CARDINAL BERNARDIN

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the 
extraordinary life of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
  Cardinal Bernardin is one of America's most beloved and most 
respected Catholics. He is the son of Italian immigrants and grew up in 
my home State of South Carolina. I am proud to claim him as a product 
of the Palmetto State. He has had a tremendous impact on my life and 
the lives of thousands of others.
  Cardinal Bernardin was made a bishop in 1966, at 38, the youngest 
U.S. bishop of that time, and since then has held a wide range of 
leadership positions. As head of the archdiocese of Chicago, the 
Nation's second-largest, for 14 years, he has built a reputation for 
reaching out to non-Catholics and for trying to bridge gaps within the 
church.
  On September 9, Cardinal Bernardin was presented with the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. In his 
remarks, President Clinton said, ``As the Archbishop of Chicago, 
Cardinal Bernardin is one of our Nation's most beloved men and one of 
Catholicism's great leaders. When others have pulled people apart, 
Cardinal Bernardin has sought common ground. In a time of transition in 
his Church, his community, his Nation and the world, he has held fast 
to his mission to bring out the best in humanity and to bring people 
together. Throughout his career, he has fought tirelessly against 
social injustice, poverty, and ignorance. Without question, he is both 
a remarkable man of God and a man of the people.''
  In a column called ``Cardinal Virtues'' earlier this week, Washington 
Post columnist Mary McGrory also talked about the extraordinary life of 
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. She told of the grace with which confronting 
his diagnosis of terminal cancer. He spoke of his diagnosis as a 
``gift,'' she said.
  McGrory writes, ``Why? Before he knew he was going to die, he said he 
had many fears.'' After the news, the Cardinal said, ``God has given me 
the gift of peace and tranquility.''
  McGrory went on to say that Cardinal Bernardin hopes to write a book 
to help other cancer victims who are terrified by the diagnosis and 
lose heart. ``I have spent 30 years as a bishop trying to teach people 
how to live,'' he said during an interview. ``Now I will teach them how 
to die.''
  Cardinal Bernardin is a remarkable man and I am honored to call him a 
friend.
  Mr. President, I ask that Mary McGrory's September 10 column be 
printed in the Record.
  The column follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1996]

                            Cardinal Virtues

                           (By Mary McGrory)

       Under some pressure on the matter of the company he keeps, 
     President Clinton surrounded himself with some classy people 
     at the White House and gave the 11 of them the Medal of 
     Freedom, the highest civilian award. The star of the occasion 
     was a small, frail cardinal from Chicago, Joseph Bernardin, 
     who accepted the medal in the East Room and then went out on 
     the lawn to explain, gently, his differences with the donor.

[[Page S10508]]

       His Eminence is totally pro-life: He is against abortion, 
     against capital punishment--both of which are favored by 
     Clinton. Some Catholics held that, given his fundamental 
     differences as well as on welfare reform, he should have 
     turned down the medal. But Bernardin explained that it comes 
     from the nation.
       His updating of Saint Thomas More's famous self-
     description, during a time of trouble with Henry VIII--``The 
     King's good servant, and God's first''--came on a day of 
     blazing heat and draining humidity. The cardinal, who was 
     recently told by doctors that he has inoperable liver cancer 
     and a limited time to live, went patiently from camera to 
     camera. ``I will take care of all of you,'' he promised 
     pastorally, and he did.
       Some thought he might be asked to perform an exorcism at 
     the White House. As the scandal of the president's chosen 
     familiar, Dick Morris, widens and deepens, fumigation might 
     not be enough. Morris's sex life may be his own business, but 
     his arrogance is not. The most popular Catholic cleric was 
     the best possible counterpoint to the pond scum. After so 
     much of the profane, the sacred was welcome.
       The cardinal startled many people when, recently in 
     Chicago, he announced that he is bound for the Promised Land. 
     He is in the midst of a project called ``Common Ground,'' 
     which he had hoped to be a forum where American Catholics can 
     discuss their differences on church matters. A mediator all 
     his life, he is concerned with the rise of incivility and 
     mean-spiritedness among the faithful. He was severely 
     criticized by three of his brother cardinals, who feared the 
     airing of unorthodoxy and possibly even heresy. He replied 
     imperturbably that the dissent of Cardinals Bernard Law of 
     Boston, James A. Hickey of Washington and Anthony Bevilacqua 
     of Philadelphia just pointed up the need for discourse.
       As for being stricken at a time of such plans, he called it 
     ``a special gift from God.''
       Why? Before he knew he was going to die, he said he had 
     many fears, among them being unjustly accused--he was by a 
     deranged young man who later recanted his story of sexual 
     harassment--and cancer. ``God has given me the gift of peace 
     and tranquility,'' he explained. He hopes to write a book to 
     help other cancer victims who are terrified by the diagnosis 
     and lose heart. ``I have spent 30 years as a bishop trying to 
     teach people how to live,'' he said during an interview. 
     ``Now I will try to teach them how to die.''
       Conversations such as this rarely occur on the White House 
     lawn, where hustle and push are the rule. Doubtless talks 
     with the others who sat on the East Room stage would also 
     have been edifying.
       The recipients had been carefully chosen not just for their 
     virtues and accomplishments but for their direct appeal to 
     various causes and ethnics. Rosa Parks, the woman who started 
     the Montgomery bus boycott by sitting down for her 
     principles, didn't make it in from Michigan in time for the 
     ceremony, but she is a black heroine. James Brady, the White 
     House press secretary who took a bullet for Ronald Reagan, 
     personifies the gun control legislation opposed by 
     Republicans; Millard Fuller is founder of Habitat for 
     Humanity, the universally admired organization that builds 
     homes for the poor and had Clinton hammering nails on his 
     birthday; David Hambur is a psychiatrist for children; John 
     H. Johnson is a black success story--he publishes Ebony and 
     Jet; Eugene Lang sends East Harlem children to college--Jack 
     Kemp, eat your heart out, Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, agent of the 
     Polish underground, speaks to Poles; Antonia Patoja to Puerto 
     Ricans; Ginetta Sagan, valiant young Italian resistance 
     courier who survived Fascist torture and devoted her life to 
     helping political prisoners; Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.), 
     former House environmentalist and wit, shows an appreciation 
     for House members.
       Clinton needed to patch things up with Catholics. They grew 
     accustomed to choice--they took other social issues into 
     consideration--but were outraged by the president's failure 
     to sign the congressional ban on a late-term abortion 
     procedure. Honoring Bernardin, the most affecting U.S. 
     prelate, is a nice gesture. But Bernardin, in his mild way, 
     will continue to disagree on certain subjects in the most 
     public way possible. He intends to join a large protest 
     against later-term abortions on Thursday at the 
     Capitol.

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