[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 146 (Friday, October 17, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H9619]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WELCOMING THE MOST REVEREND THOMAS WENSKI

  (Mr. FOLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and high honor to have 
Bishop Wenski visiting with us today. The Bishop was born in West Palm 
Beach, Florida, and grew up in Lake Worth, my hometown, where he 
attended Catholic school at his home parish, Sacred Heart.
  Bishop Wenski has provided for the pastoral and spiritual needs of 
the Haitian communities of south Florida. Through the 1980s, he 
conducted a circuit-riding ministry that led him to help establish 
Haitian-Catholic communities from Homestead in the south to Fort Pierce 
to the north, Immokalee to the west and Fort Lauderdale to the east.
  In late 1996, he spearheaded a relief operation that delivered over 
150,000 pounds of food to Caritas Cuba, the social service arm of the 
Catholic Church in Cuba, for distribution to people left homeless by 
Hurricane Lilly. This was the first time that Cubans in Miami 
participated in a humanitarian relief effort directed to their native 
land of Cuba.
  In 2001, Governor Jeb Bush appointed him to the Florida Council on 
Homelessness.
  Bishop Wenski speaks Haitian, Creole and Spanish fluently and 
preaches and celebrates mass regularly in both languages. He also has 
knowledge of Polish, the language of his immigrant father and Polish-
American mother, as is my family of Polish-American descent.
  Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Wenski as coadjutor bishop of the 
Dioceses of Orlando on July 1, and I know the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Keller) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney), among others, join me in welcoming 
their new bishop of Orlando. He is the only native Floridian serving as 
bishop in our great State of Florida, and Bishop Wenski's motto is: All 
things to all men, Corinthians 9:22.

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