[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 97 (Friday, June 27, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E1382]]
               CONGRATULATIONS HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 26, 2003

  Mrs. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, it is with the greatest pleasure that I 
congratulate the 2003 Honorary Degree recipients from John Carroll 
University, Monsignor William Linder, who received a Doctor of Laws, 
and the recipients of a Doctorate in Humane Letters, Sonya Rendon 
Blacio and Mary Patricia McTeague. America is fortunate to be blessed 
with citizens of their high calibre and profound dedication.
  Monsignor William Linder has spent his life saving cities and souls. 
During the Newark riots of 1967, the New Jersey native, a parish priest 
at the time, stepped forward to bring people together and build trust. 
He moved through the battle zone, delivering food and transporting the 
injured to hospitals. After the smoke cleared, the priest called 
together a group of residents to set about rebuilding the city they 
loved. In Newark's Central Ward, they formed the New Community 
Corporation (NCC) and charged it with the mission of creating housing 
and the products and services that would bring jobs. The NCC has become 
the largest and most successful community development organization in 
the United States. It has brought new life to the old city of Newark, 
providing housing and jobs for thousands, and creating a community 
development model that is now being studied and emulated throughout the 
world. Monsignor Linder has won the McArthur Foundation ``Genius'' 
fellowship, and he has received countless honors in the course of his 
remarkable ministry to the people of northern New Jersey. He has said, 
``I have never really thought of myself as a pastor to only Catholics. 
I am a pastor of people.''
  In honor of Monsignor Linder, Professor George Bilgere penned the 
following poem:

     You walked into the battle zone
     Of Newark in the sixties
     A young, audacious, rabble-rousing priest,
     Hoping to rebuild the city from its core,
     To heal its broken heart, to do
     What no one believed you could do.

     The broken-hearted cities,
     The neighborhoods called Hough
     And Watts and Spanish Harlem,
     Are not the parts of America
     We think of saving
     When the bombs are falling,
     Or when the flag is waving
     Over baseball games in spring.

     Probably there aren't many flags
     Waving over East St. Louis or Cabrini Green
     Or Roxbury or Eight mile,
     But it's hard to know for sure
     Because no one travels there
     Who doesn't have to.
     Only those who have no choice
     Live in the broken heart
     Of America.

     But now, thirty-five years later,
     A gray-haired, audacious, rabble-rousing priest,
     You watch the Central Ward prosper
     While the country watches you,
     Taking hope from the strength and courage,
     The hard work of one stubborn man,
     One man of vision who understands
     That America will not be whole or free
     Until the cities,
     The broken-hearted cities, are healed.

  Sonya Rendon Blacio and Mary Patricia McTeague have had dramatic 
success in creating a new world in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Rendon, an 
Ecuadorian education, and McTeague, an American and a former nun, have 
built a school that is a model of both educational excellence and 
egalitarianism. At Escuela Nuevo Mondo, which the two women began in 
1979, the school's 200 faculty members instruct 1400 tuition-paying 
students, the children of affluent Ecuador, in the morning. In the 
afternoon, 900 children of poverty receive the same education for free 
from the Fundacion Nuevo Mondo. Rendon and McTeague state that Nuevo 
Mondo is in truth ``a social revolution aimed at changing attitudes 
between social classes and opening doors to offer options to some of 
the 80 percent of Ecuadorians who otherwise would not have the 
opportunity for quality education, medical and social assistance.'' 
Today, Nuevo Mondo operates elementary and high schools, a commercial 
bakery, two day care centers, two medical centers and vocational 
training projects. The people of Ecuador continue to struggle, but 
Nuevo Mondo has been a beacon pointing the way to a new world.
  In honor of Sonya Rendon Blacio and Mary Patricia McTeague, Professor 
George Bilgere penned the following poem:

     On the coast of Ecuador,
     Out of poverty and despair,
     A new world is rising,
     One classroom at a time
     A Nuevo Mundo, where once
     Was only a jungle and a dream.

     At first your idea was simple;
     Build a school for their children
     So in the afternoon
     There would, at last, be a classroom
     For the children of the poor.

     But you learned over time
     That the rich, too, are poor,
     As long as they can't define
     The word hunger, or explain
     What it means to have no shoes,
     Or to be unable
     To read the Bible, or a novel,
     Or your name.

     Real change, you found,
     Comes only when the rich man suffers
     To learn from the beggar
     That they are brothers
     Who can help each other
     Ease the pain of the world;

     Only then will come the day
     When the old world passed
     Through hard work and love
     And the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
     Into the new world you dream of
     And are building from the jungle
     One classroom at a time,
     That Nuevo Mundo, where all
     Are brothers and sisters,
     Equal in every way.

                          ____________________