[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 7, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E737-E738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ON THE DEATH OF MSGR. GEORGE HIGGINS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES L. OBERSTAR

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 7, 2002

  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in tribute to a man who devoted his 
life to social justice.
  Today we say goodbye to Monsignor George G. Higgins, who headed the 
Social Action Department of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for 
35 years. Msgr. Higgins died May 1, and was buried today in his home 
town of LaGrange, Illinois. He was 86 years old.
  Msgr. Higgins fought for the rights of workers, whether they were 
auto workers in Detroit, farm workers in California or steelworkers on 
the Iron Range of Minnesota. He wrote nearly 3,000 columns on social 
issues for Catholic newspapers across the country from 1945 until 
September 2001, when he could no longer continue because of failing 
eyesight.
  Msgr. Higgins held a doctorate in economics and political science 
from Catholic University of America. He was awarded the University of 
Notre Dame's highest honor, the Laetare Medal, and the Presidential 
Medal of Freedom. Last year he was honored as one of the great pioneers 
in promoting dialogue between Catholics and Jews by the International 
Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee.
  Msgr. Higgins made a lasting imprint on the Church's approach to 
social policy in America: feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, 
clothing the poor.
  As columnist E.J. Dionne wrote in today's Washington Post, ``It is 
one of the highest callings of spiritual leaders to force those who 
live happy and comfortable lives to consider their obligations to those 
heavily burdened by injustice and deprivation.'' Msgr. Higgins answered 
that calling.
  Mr. Speaker, at a time when a dark cloud of scandal hangs over the 
Catholic Church, it is important to note that the priesthood is full of 
good men doing God's work. Msgr. Higgins was such a priest. All of us 
who believe in the fair treatment of working men and women, compassion 
for the poorest among us, and brotherhood with those of other faiths, 
will miss him deeply.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask to submit the full text of E.J. Dionne's column 
for the Record. 

                   [Washingtonpost.com, May 7, 2002]

                          The Great Monsignor

                         (By E. J. Dionne, Jr.)

       There is no such thing as a timely death. But just when you 
     thought all the stories on American priests were destined to 
     be about evil committed and covered up, one of the truly 
     great priests was called to his eternal reward.
       Monsignor George G. Higgins was the sort of Catholic 
     clergyman regularly cast as a hero in movies of the 1940s and 
     '50s. He was an uncompromising pro-labor priest who walked 
     picket lines, fought anti-Semitism, supported civil rights 
     and wrote and wrote and wrote in the hope that some of his 
     arguments about social justice might penetrate somewhere.
       He got attached to causes before they became fashionable, 
     and stuck with them after the fashionable people moved on. 
     Cesar Chavez once said that no one had done more for American 
     farm workers than Monsignor Higgins. In the 1980s, he 
     traveled regularly to Poland in support of Solidarity's 
     struggle against communism and became an important link 
     between American union leaders and their Polish brethren.
       As it happens, even the day of Monsignor Higgins's death, 
     at the age of 86, was appropriate. He passed from this world 
     on May 1, the day that many countries set aside to honor 
     labor and that the Catholic Church designates as the Feast of 
     St. Joseph the Worker.
       If Higgins had been there when that famous carpenter was 
     looking for a place to spend the night with his pregnant 
     wife, the monsignor would certainly have taken the family in. 
     He would also have handed Joseph a union card, told him he 
     deserved better pay and benefits, and insisted that no 
     working person should ever have to beg for shelter.
       Yes, Higgins sounds so old-fashioned--and in every good 
     sense he was--that you might wonder about his relevance to 
     our moment. Let us count the ways.
       One of the most astonishing and disturbing aspects of the 
     Catholic Church's current scandal is the profound 
     disjunction--that's a charitable word--between what the 
     church preaches about sexuality and compassion toward the 
     young and how its leaders reacted to the flagrant violation 
     of these norms by priests.
       Higgins, who spent decades as the Catholic Church's point 
     man on labor and social justice issues, hated the idea of 
     preachers' exhorting people to do one thing and then doing 
     the opposite. And so he made himself into a true pain for any 
     administrator of any Catholic institution who resisted the 
     demands of workers for fair pay and union representation.
       ``These men and women mop the floors of Catholic schools, 
     work in Catholic hospital kitchens and perform other 
     sometimes menial tasks in various institutions,'' he once 
     wrote. ``They have not volunteered to serve the church for 
     less than proportionate compensation.''

[[Page E738]]

       ``The church has a long history of speaking out on justice 
     and peace issues,'' he said. ``Yet only in more recent times 
     has the church made it clear that these teachings apply as 
     well to the workings of its own institutions.''
       Where some religious leaders complain that they get caught 
     up in scandal because they are unfairly held to higher 
     standards, Higgins believed that higher standards were 
     exactly the calling of those who claim the authority to tell 
     others what to do.
       It bothered Higgins to the end of his life that the cause 
     of trade unionism had become so unfashionable, especially 
     among well-educated and well-paid elites. For 56 years, he 
     wrote a column for the Catholic press, and he returned to 
     union issues so often that he once felt obligated to headline 
     one of his offerings: ``Why There's So Much Ado About Labor 
     in My Column.''
       His answer was simple: ``I am convinced that we are not 
     likely to have a fully free or democratic society over the 
     long haul without a strong and effective labor movement.''
       To those who saw collective bargaining as outdated in a new 
     economy involving choice, mobility and entrepreneurship, 
     Higgins would thunder back about the rights of those for whom 
     such a glittering world was still, at best, a distant 
     possibility: hospital workers, farm workers, fast-food 
     workers and others who need higher wages to help their 
     children reach their dreams. He could not abide well-paid 
     intellectuals who regularly derided unions as dinosaurs, and 
     he told them so, over and over.
       It is one of the highest callings of spiritual leaders to 
     force those who live happy and comfortable lives to consider 
     their obligations to those heavily burdened by injustice and 
     deprivation. It is a great loss when such prophetic voices 
     are stilled by scandal and the cynicism it breeds. 
     Fortunately, that never happened to Higgins. He never had to 
     shut up about injustice and, God bless him, he never did.

     

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