[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 134 (Thursday, December 7, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11487-S11488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FATHER ANGELO D'AGOSTINO

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, two Sundays ago, when Marcelle and I were 
at mass at Holy Trinity at Georgetown, we listened to a homily about 
the life of Angelo D'Agostino, SJ. I had been thinking about Father 
D'Ag, as those of us knew him called him, since I had received word 
from his dear friend Ben Palumbo that he had died. Ben and Madge 
Palumbo were wonderful friends to Father D'Ag, as they have been to 
Marcelle and me.
  As Father Kevin O'Brien noted while talking about the home Father 
D'Agostino began in Nyumbani, Kenya, Father D'Ag worked tirelessly to 
raise money, especially for abandoned HIV-positive children. His 
Nyumbani village was designed to hold together families, where most 
members had lost their normal family cohesiveness because of deaths 
from AIDS. So many of us, like my friend Senator Dennis DeConcini and 
others, always responded when the Palumbos asked us to go to fund-
raisers to raise money for the work Father D'Agostino was doing 
throughout Africa. I told some of his fellow Jesuits that we long ago 
decided that we would do whatever Father D'Agostino wanted--eventually 
he'd make sure we would anyway, so we might as well do it graciously to 
begin with. Nothing fazed him when he was asking for others. He always 
went out of his way to remind Senator DeConcini, Ben Palumbo, and me 
that we shared Italian heritage. I once told him, ``Angelo, no matter 
who you were seeking help from, you would find something to connect 
you, and that would be the reason to do it.'' I remember his laugh to 
this day.
  The beauty of Father D'Agostino and the saintly nature of him was 
that he never asked for anything for himself--it was always for others. 
He gave a voice to those who had no voice, and he leaves a great gap in 
their lives.
  Even the President of Kenya and his wife attended the funeral to 
express his sorrow for the death of Father D'Agostino. He told the 
board members and others at the funeral that they must carry on Father 
D'Ag's work. He said, ``I am sure that is the assurance Father 
D'Agostino would have liked. He founded these homes and wanted to 
succeed in reducing the prevalence and effects of HIV/AIDS. You should 
take the responsibility of ensuring that Father D'Agostino's work 
continues.''
  I ask unanimous consent that an article by Joe Holley of The 
Washington Post about Father D'Agostino be printed in the Record, as 
well as an article from the official website of the President of Kenya.
  For my part, I feel blessed for having known Father D'Ag and I mourn 
his loss.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

          Angelo D'Agostino; Priest Aided HIV-Positive Orphans

                            (By Joe Holley)

       The Rev. Angelo D'Agostino, 80, a physician, psychiatrist 
     and Jesuit priest who opened one of the first orphanages for 
     abandoned HIV-positive children in Kenya, died Nov. 20 of 
     cardiac arrest at the Karen Hospital in Nairobi. He had been 
     hospitalized for a week with abdominal pain from 
     diverticulitis and died after surgery.
       Father D'Agostino, who practiced and taught psychiatry in 
     Washington during the 1970s and '80s, was called to a country 
     with more than 1 million children whose parents have died of 
     AIDS. Many of the children, often HIV-positive themselves, 
     have been abandoned or left to roam through Kenya's big-city 
     slums.
       He encountered the needs of Kenya's children while serving 
     on the board of governors for a large orphanage in 1991. When 
     the orphanage began receiving scores of abandoned children 
     who tested HIV-positive, Father D'Agostino suggested setting 
     up a facility for them. The board opposed the idea, so in 
     1992, he founded the Nyumbani Orphanage, beginning with three 
     HIV-positive children.
       Today Nyumbani, or ``home'' in Swahili, shelters about 100 
     Kenyan children, from newborns to 23-year-olds.
       The larger nonprofit organization, also called Nyumbani, 
     includes Lea Toto (Swahili for ``to raise the child''), a 
     community-based program founded in 1998 to provide outreach 
     services to HIV-positive children and their families in the 
     Nairobi area. Nyumbani also has the most advanced blood 
     diagnostic laboratory in Kenya.
       At the time of his death, Father D'Agostino, an 
     indefatigable fundraiser, had just returned from Rome and the 
     United States, where he had solicited money for Nyumbani 
     Village, a self-sustaining community to serve the orphans and 
     elderly left behind by the ``lost generation'' of the AIDS 
     pandemic. The goal of the village, which has plans for 100 
     houses, a school, a clinic and a community center, is to 
     create new blended families for orphaned children under the 
     care of elderly adults.
       ``It was difficult to say no to him, particularly because 
     what he asked you to do were the kinds of things your 
     conscience would bedevil you about if you said no,'' said 
     Benjamin L. Palumbo, a Washington attorney who serves as 
     president of Nyumbani's U.S. board of directors.
       Father D'Agostino's friends and orphanage supporters ran 
     the political gamut, from

[[Page S11488]]

     former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-
     Vt). Leahy called him ``a living saint''
       Short and rotund, ``Father D'Ag,'' as some knew him, was 
     quick to laugh but also had a temper, his friend James 
     Desmond recalled. Desmond, former owner of a downtown bar 
     called Beowulfs, one of the priest's haunts when he lived in 
     Washington, recalled being with him in a meeting with 
     congressional aides who were giving him the polite brushoff. 
     When the priest realized what was happening, Desmond had to 
     hustle him out the door before his temper got the best of 
     him.
       In 2001, Nyumbani became the first place in Africa to 
     import deeply discounted AIDS drugs under an Indian 
     pharmaceutical company's program to make such drugs more 
     affordable on the continent where most of the world's AIDS 
     patients live and die.
       ``I am sick and tired of doing funerals,'' Father 
     D'Agostino told The Washington Post, explaining why he was 
     willing to defy national regulations and international patent 
     rules to buy cheaper, generic AIDS drugs.
       ``It's really the darker side of capitalism, the greed that 
     is being manifest by these drug companies holding sub-Saharan 
     Africa hostage,'' he told The Post. ``People are dying 
     because they can't afford their prices.''
       He also sued the Kenyan government for its policy banning 
     HIV-positive children from the nation's public schools. He 
     won that suit last year, which allowed more than 100,000 
     children to rejoin their classmates in schools across the 
     country.
       Angelo D'Agostino was one of six children born to Italian 
     immigrants in Providence, R.I. His younger brother, Dr. 
     Joseph D'Agostino of Fairfax, recalled that he had asthma as 
     a child, so he spent a lot of time reading, making model 
     airplanes and growing plants and flowers in the family's back 
     yard.
       He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry and 
     philosophy from St. Michael's College in 1945 and his medical 
     degree from Tufts University in 1949. He received a master of 
     science degree in surgery from Tufts in 1953.
       He served in the Air Force from 1953 to 1955 as chief of 
     urology at Bolling Air Force Base. After attending a retreat 
     with the Knights of Columbus, he decided to enter the 
     priesthood in 1954, although the Jesuits at Georgetown asked 
     him to take a year before making a final decision.
       ``The Jesuits couldn't use a urologist or kidney stone 
     specialist,'' his brother recalled, ``so they told him to go 
     into psychiatry.''
       After a psychiatric residency at Georgetown from 1959 to 
     1965 and further work at the Washington Psychoanalytic 
     Institute from 1962 to 1967, he became one of the first 
     American Jesuits to be trained as a psychiatrist. (He liked 
     to say he had ``more degrees than a thermometer,'' a nephew 
     recalled.)
       He was ordained in 1966, earlier than expected because the 
     Jesuits were concerned that he was going to succumb to lupus, 
     an illness he had battled his whole life.
       He taught psychiatry at Georgetown University and George 
     Washington University and in 1972 founded the Center for 
     Religion and Psychiatry at the Washington Theological Union 
     to promote dialogue between the two. From 1983 to 1987, he 
     was in private practice in the District. A number of his 
     clients were police officers, many whom he met over beers at 
     Beowulf's.
       Father D'Agostino helped administer refugee centers in 
     Thailand and East Africa in the 1980s, but it was the lost 
     children of Kenya who captured his heart and wouldn't let go. 
     They called him ``Faza.''
       He retired when he turned 80, ``but it was retirement with 
     a small `r,' ``Joe D'Agostino said. ``He still went to the 
     office every day, although he was happy he didn't have to go 
     to meetings anymore.''
       He will be buried in Kenya. His brother, his only immediate 
     survivor, recalled that Father D'Agostino had only one regret 
     about his adopted homeland: ``He couldn't grow good tomatoes 
     over there. Being a good Italian, that was important to 
     him.''
                                  ____


    President and First Lady attend Father D'Agostino's Requiem mass

       President Mwai Kibaki and First Lady Lucy Kibaki Monday 
     joined other mourners for the requiem mass for Rev. Father 
     Angelo D'Agostino at the Consolata Shrine Catholic Church in 
     Westlands, Nairobi.
       The mass was conducted by Nairobi Archbishop Ndingi Mwana 
     A'Nzeki.
       Addressing the congregation, President Kibaki urged Kenyans 
     to emulate Father 
     D'Agostino and assist the less fortunate in the society.
       He called on board members of Nyumbani Children's Home, Lea 
     Toto and Nyumbani Village in Kitui to carry on with Father 
     D'Agostino's work, ensuring that the homes are well 
     maintained and succeed in serving the HIV/AIDS orphans.
       President Kibaki said: ``I am sure that is the assurance 
     Father D'Agostino would have liked. He founded these homes 
     and wanted them to succeed in reducing the prevalence and 
     effects of HIV/AIDS.''
       ``You should take the responsibility of ensuring that 
     Father D'Agostino's work continues,'' the Head of State said.
       Paying tribute to Father D'Agostino, the First Lady 
     described him as a colleague in her work of caring for 
     orphans and in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the country.
       She pointed out that Father D'Agostino played a pivotal 
     role when she was setting up the Kenya Chapter of the 
     Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) 
     by introducing her to key people and institutions helping in 
     the fight against HIV/AIDS.
       As the patron of Nyumbani Children Homes, the First Lady 
     reassured the orphans that she will continue working hard to 
     provide them with the resources they need.
       The First Lady recalled conversations she had with U.S. 
     President George W. Bush during a state dinner in Washington 
     when the U.S. leader hailed the work done by Father 
     D'Agostino in assisting vulnerable members of the Kenyan 
     society.
       The mass was also attended by the Pope's representative in 
     Kenya Archbishop Alain Paul Lebeaupin among others.

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