[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 31 (Saturday, February 17, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S2202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO ROBERT F. DRINAN, SJ

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on February 1, I went to the funeral mass 
for Robert F. Drinan, SJ. Rarely have I been so moved at such at a 
solemn occasion. This was a joyous celebration of a wonderful man's 
life.
  I knew Bob Drinan before he was a Member of Congress and was referred 
to as the ``conscience of the Congress.'' I was a young college student 
when he recruited me to go to Boston College Law School. To make it 
better, he even offered a scholarship, and as a student with absolutely 
no money, this was most appealing. I finally called Father Drinan and 
told him I was going to Georgetown Law School because I especially 
wanted to be in Washington. He chuckled and said he was giving me 
absolution, insofar as it was a Jesuit institution.
  Throughout the more than 40 years since then, he and I talked often 
and had some of the most wonderful visits. His interests in life, the 
United States, the Jesuit mission, and his friends never faded. The 
last time we saw each other was when I gave a speech in December at the 
Georgetown Law School, and he came by to hug and greet both Marcelle 
and me.
  I will not try to repeat all of the wonderful things said about him, 
but I do ask unanimous consent that a tribute to him by Colman McCarthy 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 Father Drinan, Model of Moral Tenacity

                          (By Colman McCarthy)

       If you've ever wondered whether God laughs, think back to 
     1980, when the Rev. Robert Drinan was ordered by Pope John 
     Paul II to get out of politics and leave Congress. The Jesuit 
     priest, who died on Sunday, was finishing his fifth term 
     representing a suburban Boston district that included 
     Cambridge and Brookline. The pope had been hearing from 
     rankled conservative American Catholics--the Pat Buchanan, 
     William F. Buckley Jr., William Bennett wing of the church--
     that Father Drinan, a purebred Democrat, was a dangerous 
     liberal. His voting record on abortion was seen as too pro-
     choice.
       Father Drinan's presence in the House of Representatives 
     had been sanctioned by the previous pope, Paul VI, as well as 
     by the U.S. episcopate, the cardinal of Boston, his own 
     Jesuit superiors and emphatically by the voters in his 
     district.
       No matter.
       John Paul, knowing that Jesuits take a vow of loyalty to 
     popes, had his way. And who replaced the dangerously liberal 
     Father Drinan? The more dangerously liberal Barney Frank--as 
     ardent an advocate for abortion rights and as he was for gay 
     rights. If there is a God, the Frank-for-Drinan trade surely 
     had Him laughing at the Vatican's expense.
       From Congress, Bob Drinan went a few blocks to Georgetown 
     University Law Center.
       It was a natural transition, from practicing the politics 
     of peace and justice to teaching it. His classes on human 
     rights law, constitutional law and legal ethics were 
     routinely oversubscribed. Though I had met him before his 
     days in Congress, when he served as dean of Boston College 
     Law School, it was at Georgetown Law that our friendship 
     grew. My classes there for the past 20 years have attracted 
     the same kind of students that his did--future public-
     interest lawyers, poverty lawyers, human-rights lawyers, and, 
     in good years, a future Jack Olender or William Kunstler.
       After my Tuesday afternoon class, I would often go by Bob 
     Drinan's fourth-floor office to get energized. I saw him as a 
     towering moral giant, a man of faith whose practice of 
     Christianity put him in the company of all my Jesuit heroes--
     Daniel Berrigan, Horace McKenna, Teilhard de Chardin, John 
     Dear, Francis Xavier, the martyred Jesuits of El Salvador and 
     the priests who taught me in college. In his office, 
     ferociously unkempt and as tight as a monk's cell, our 
     conversation ranged from politics to law to the morning's 
     front pages. He was as knowledgeable about the Torture Victim 
     Protection Act of 1991 as he was about the many allegations 
     of international lawbreaking by the current Bush 
     administration. Bob Drinan had mastered the art of being 
     professionally angry but personally gentle.
       As a priest, he was a pastor-at-large. He was at the altar 
     at journalist Mary McGrory's funeral Mass. He celebrated the 
     Nuptial Mass at the marriage of Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) 
     and his wife, Lisa. And always, there were plenty of 
     baptisms. As a writer, he produced a steady flow of books on 
     human rights, poverty and social justice. He saved his most 
     fiery writing for the National Catholic Reporter, the 
     progressive weekly to which he contributed a regular column. 
     His final one appeared on Dec. 15, a piece about the 26th 
     anniversary of the martyrdom in El Salvador of Maryknoll 
     Sister Ita Ford.
       The column began: ``In the 1980s I gave a lecture at Jesuit 
     Regis High School in New York City, where the students are 
     all on scholarship. I spoke about the war being waged by the 
     Reagan administration against the alleged communists of El 
     Salvador.
       ``In the discussion period, three students took issue with 
     my remarks, making it clear that they and their families 
     agreed with the U.S. policy of assisting the Salvadoran 
     government. The atmosphere was almost hostile until one 
     student stood and related that his aunt, Maryknoll Sister Ita 
     Ford, had been murdered by agents of the government of El 
     Salvador. I have seldom if ever witnessed such an abrupt 
     change in the atmosphere of a meeting.''
       One of my students at Georgetown Law last semester was also 
     one of Father Drinan's: Chris Neumeyer, a former high school 
     teacher from California. His father, Norris Neumeyer, was in 
     town earlier this month and wanted to meet his hero, Father 
     Drinan. The two lucked out and found the priest in his 
     office. Yesterday, Norris Neumeyer, after learning of the 
     priest's death, e-mailed his son and recalled asking if 
     Father Drinan knew his often-jailed fellow Jesuit Daniel 
     Berrigan and his brother Philip. He did. The difference 
     between himself and the Berrigans, Father Drinan believed, 
     was that they took action outside the system while he took 
     action inside.
       Papal meddling aside, it was enduring action.

       

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