[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CONCERN REGARDING RELIGIOUS DEBATE IN OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sherwood). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my very deep concern 
about the character of the debate in our country today with regards to 
religion.
  For the past 5 years, I have been very involved in the Irish peace 
process, and at the root of the hatred and the mistrust in northern 
Ireland is the differences in religion. We can see what damage and the 
trouble that it has caused to that country. Indeed, our own troops have 
been involved in Kosovo separating warring religious and national 
groups.
  We are witnessing a war in Russia that has a great deal also to do 
with religion between Christians and Muslims. To continue this debate 
in our country with elected leaders criticizing religious leaders and 
religious leaders criticizing political leaders and political leaders 
criticizing other political leaders for taking sides with other 
religious leaders, I thought we had put that behind us. I thought that 
that sort of debate in this country was over, but obviously it is not.
  Hubert Humphrey said a long time ago, the great happy warrior 
Democrat, he who throws mud loses ground. Unfortunately, there is a lot 
of mud being thrown around today, and a lot of it regarding this issue 
of religion.
  I would like to address my comments to the choice by Speaker Hastert 
of our chaplain. I do not understand why anyone, anyone would be 
critical of the Speaker's choice. It is a very personal decision. He 
made a choice and now he is being accused of being anti-Catholic.
  I cannot fathom why anyone would raise that issue. He is an honorable 
man. He is a decent and honest man, and he made an honest decision. And 
we should respect that decision.

                              {time}  1515

  But it seems that people will reach at anything to get political 
gain, and it is a downward spiral. If this debate continues, we are 
headed nowhere but down with a very difficult situation ahead of us and 
no way to get out of it.
  Let me just give my colleagues a little history regarding the choice 
of chaplain in the Congress. For the first 100 years of this country, 
we had 50 chaplains. Basically, one chaplain for each Congress. For the 
last 105 years, since around 1895, we have had five chaplains. Five. So 
the duration of their term in this position has become much, much 
longer. It is a different position than it was. And I am not so sure 
that the original Congresses did not have it right, one chaplain per 
Congress, one Congress per chaplain.
  But to make the political points here, the Democratic party, the 
modern Democratic party, which began in the middle of the 18th century, 
has appointed 20 chaplains in its time. Republicans, the modern 
Republican Party, beginning around the same time, has appointed eight 
chaplains. In none of those cases, those 28 chaplains that were 
appointed, was there a Catholic priest appointed. There has never been 
an outcry before. Never been an outcry.
  There are Members of this Congress currently criticizing Speaker 
Hastert for his choice of a Protestant minister, a Presbyterian, 
criticizing him for that choice when they were seated in this House 
when other speakers appointed Protestant chaplains. Where was the 
outcry then? Where was the Democratic party, the criticism then? Why is 
it coming now to Speaker Hastert? I think he made a wise decision. I 
think he made a wise choice, and I think we owe him the respect and the 
honor of making that decision.
  The Speaker tried to open this process up. He appointed a committee 
to help him to make the choice. The committee came back, it was a 
bipartisan committee, with three names. Three individuals. No rank, no 
unanimous support for one, but they gave the Speaker three choices. He 
made a choice among those three, and he picked Reverend Wright. Maybe 
it was a mistake to open it up to a so-called democratic process.
  Obviously, I could talk a lot longer about this, but suffice to say 
that we owe the Speaker the respect that he is due. We owe the choice 
that he has made the respect that that is due. And I would urge people 
to stop throwing mud and to stop this downward spiral of anti-religious 
talk in our country.

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