[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 15 (Wednesday, January 30, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S480-S481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IN MEMORY OF SISTER DOROTHY MARIE HENNESSEY

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, on January 25, all who work and struggle 
for social and economic justice, who dedicate themselves to peace and 
ending war, lost a wonderful friend in Sister Dorothy Marie Hennessey. 
The world lost a true Christian soul who, in her own quiet, humble way, 
fought relentlessly for peace and social justice.
  Sister Dorothy lived 94 years, 67 of them as a member of the Sisters 
of St. Frances. She was the eldest of 15 brothers and sisters who grew 
up on a farm near Oneida, IA, taught by their parents that the Golden 
Rule was not an abstraction but a way of life. She fondly always 
remembered that her family ``always fed and housed the tramps who came 
to [their] farm.''
  Sister Dorothy kept her theology simple and straightforward. She 
said:

       I've learned in 75 years in the convent that God is a 
     compassionate God who loves all of us, but who also loves the 
     poor and the people who are oppressed.

  But Sister Dorothy also believed, in the words of President Kennedy, 
that ``God's work on Earth must truly be our own.'' She was the 
opposite of a cloistered nun. She was an activist. She stepped forward 
boldly, if humbly, to make the world a better and fairer and more just 
place.
  She taught in Catholic schools in the Dubuque area for 28 years and 
another 4 years in Portland, OR. But in the 1960s, her social 
consciousness came alive. She was deeply disturbed by the tragedy 
unfolding in Vietnam. And she was shocked to learn from her brother, 
also a priest--Father Ron Hennessey, a longtime missionary in Latin 
America--about the atrocities committed by dictators and their death 
squads in Central America.
  Father Ron was, as we know--and he was a friend of mine, and I knew 
him well--also a friend of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, and 
he witnessed the Salvadoran military firing on mourners after the 
archbishop's assassination.
  Sister Dorothy became a leader in a newly formed human rights group 
in Dubuque and spent the rest of her life engaging in principled acts 
of dissent and protest, at times putting her own life at risk.
  For example, in 1984, she went to Nicaragua with the group Witness 
for Peace, acting as human shields to protect northern border villages 
from attacks by the CIA-backed Contras.
  In 1986, at the age of 73, she joined more than 1,000 activists in 
the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, traveling 3,500 
miles from Los Angeles to Washington, DC--at the age of 73.
  Beginning in 1997, she participated in annual protests at the School 
of the Americas at Fort Benning, GA, where graduates had been 
implicated in human rights abuses all over Latin America, Central 
America, including the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador.
  Sister Dorothy was arrested three times for crossing the line onto 
the Army base. On the third occasion, at the age of 88, she was one of 
3,600 protesters who were arrested. Twenty-six of them were selected by 
lottery to be prosecuted in Federal court, including Sister Dorothy and 
her sibling, Sister Gwen, also a Franciscan Nun.
  Sister Dorothy was sentenced by a Federal judge to 6 months of 
detention in her convent, but she refused this leniency. She insisted 
on receiving the same treatment as her other 25 codefendants. So her 
sentence was changed to 6 months at the Federal Prison Camp in 
Illinois. As a Des Moines Register columnist noted, ``She was allowed 
to take her hearing aids, but not her Bible.''
  After a month and a half, she was transferred to a correctional 
facility in Dubuque, supposedly for health reasons. But Sister Dorothy 
knew better. The real reason was the Federal Government's sheer 
embarrassment at incarcerating an 88-year-old nun because she dared to 
stand up for justice.
  During her time in prison, Sister Dorothy was interviewed by a 
reporter with the Public Broadcasting System. She said:

       I feel that it's our duty. We can't protest everything, but 
     we can pick out some of the worst things to protest, and 
     that's what I've tried to do.

  So into her eighties, nineties, Sister Dorothy continued to find new 
ways to serve people and to help change the world for the good. From 
1996 to 2000, she worked as a daily volunteer at Clare House, a 
residence in Cedar Rapids for people with AIDS. She cooked and cleaned 
for the patients. She spoke out loudly and clearly, also, for the 
rights of gays and lesbians.
  On a personal note, I will always be grateful to Sister Dorothy for 
her many years of friendship and counsel. It has been one of the 
privileges of my life to know so many members of that wonderful, 
wonderful Hennessey family--Father Ron, all the years he risked his 
life in Central America, and both Sister Dorothy and Sister Gwen, and 
another sister. There is Sister Miriam, who was tragically killed in a 
car incident some years ago. What a wonderful family.
  Sister Dorothy worked for a while as a senior intern in my Dubuque 
office. I say ``for a while''--actually, for 8 years. She was a great 
mentor and inspiration to all of my staff.
  So I will always cherish my friendship not only with Sister Dorothy 
but also with Sister Gwen, Sister Miriam, Father Ron, and so many other 
members whom I have known of the entire Hennessey family.
  Madam President, as you can clearly see, Sister Dorothy was a 
remarkable person. I am reminded of the old saying: We make a living by 
what we make; but we make a life by what we give. Throughout her 
amazing life, Sister Dorothy was the ultimate giver. She gave her adult 
life to the church and to the Sisters of St. Frances. She gave more 
than three decades of dedicated service to her students. She gave her 
service on boards and in countless volunteer organizations. And, as I 
have pointed out, she gave of herself in dissent and protest many times 
against oppression and to end war.
  She gave us her moral passion. She gave us her fine Christian 
example. She gave us her courage and decency, her love and friendship. 
She gave it all she had to make sure the world was a better place, that 
we all--all--had that prickling conscience that things were not right 
when poor people suffered, when war became the norm, when there were so 
many abuses of human rights and oppression against the disenfranchised 
and the poor in this country and in other places around the globe.
  So after a rich lifetime of service, Sister Dorothy has been called 
home. She left the world a better place. I am deeply grateful to have 
had her as a friend. To all of the Franciscan nuns, to her family, of 
course, my deepest condolences from me and all of my family on her 
passing, but also our deepest thanks for sharing such a wonderful, 
magnificent person with us during her lifetime.
  We will remember her and hopefully honor Sister Dorothy by continuing 
to do what we can to make sure that our Government works more for 
social justice and economic justice, that we turn away from the 
instruments of war and the funding for war and making war sort of the 
norm, and that we reach out in understanding and peace to the rest of 
the world. She would have not only asked nothing less, she would have 
demanded nothing less of us.

[[Page S481]]

  So we say goodbye to Sister Dorothy and, again, honor her memory by 
continuing to do what we can in our lifetimes to continue in her great 
work.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that an article that 
appeared today in the Des Moines Register by Rekha Basu regarding 
Sister Dorothy be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Des Moines Register, Jan. 30, 2008]

          Basu: Dubuque Nun Taught Us To Stand Up for Beliefs

                            (By Rekha Basu)

       At 88, Sister Dorothy Marie Hennessey of Dubuque was 
     arrested for trespassing on a U.S. military base. She'd been 
     protesting a school reputed to train Latin American military 
     members to repress democracy advocates. Noting her advanced 
     age, the judge offered her the option of staying under house 
     arrest in her convent.
       ``I appreciate your thoughtfulness,'' replied the 
     diminutive nun. ``But I am not an invalid. I'd like to have 
     the same sentence the others have.''
       So Sister Hennessey began her six-month prison term (the 
     maximum sentence), along with 25 others, at the Federal 
     Correctional Institution in Pekin, Ill. She was allowed to 
     take her hearing aids, but not her Bible.
       The woman dubbed ``the radical nun,'' the activist who in 
     her 70s walked across the country to protest the Cold War, 
     died last week at age 94--and the planet is poorer for it. We 
     lost a passionate champion of peace and justice who, even 
     while protesting war and injustice, maintained an unflagging 
     sense of optimism.
       ``I consider it a spiritual commitment because I've learned 
     in my almost 70 years in the convent that God is a 
     compassionate God who loves all of us,'' she once said, ``but 
     who also loves the poor and the people who are oppressed.''
       Though she was a giant in every way but physically, Sister 
     Hennessey's name wasn't a household one in Iowa. It should 
     be. She earned a place in both the Iowa Women's Archives and 
     Wikipedia, was written about in the New York Times and was 
     interviewed on PBS. And with her biological sister Gwen, also 
     a Franciscan nun, she was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award 
     from the Davenport Catholic Diocese in 2002, earning a place 
     among such luminaries as Daniel Berrigan, Cesar Chavez, 
     Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa. The 
     award is named after a Papal encyclical by Pope John XXIII 
     that calls upon people of goodwill to bring peace among 
     nations. It recognized the sisters for ``living out the 
     Gospel through their work on behalf of the poor and for 
     peace.''
       The oldest of 15 children, Sister Hennessey was born in 
     1913 in Manchester and raised on a farm. She spent 75 years 
     at St. Francis in Dubuque and taught in various Iowa 
     communities and in Portland, Ore.
       It was her brother, the late Ron Hennessey, a longtime 
     missionary in Latin America, who first inspired her social 
     activism. His letters from Guatemala and El Salvador in the 
     1980s told of terrorism and killings of Mayan Indians in his 
     parish by Guatemalan death squads. Brutal wars in Central 
     America were being waged using American guns and money.
       A friend of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Father 
     Hennessey wrote of witnessing the Salvadoran military firing 
     on mourners in the cathedral after Romero's assassination.
       Sister Hennessey centered her protests on the Army's School 
     of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga., because it trained 
     Latin American soldiers and police. The school said it gave 
     them a professional education. Protesters said it taught 
     torture. Graduates from the school were later implicated in 
     the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests and two women in El 
     Salvador. The protest that sent Sister Hennessey to prison 
     involved a mock funeral procession. The school was closed a 
     month later, but it reopened under a different name.
       In an interview from prison in 2001 on PBS ``Religion and 
     Ethics,'' Sister Hennessey told host Bob Abernethy, ``I feel 
     that it's our duty. We can't protest everything, but we can 
     pick out some of the worst things to protest, and that's what 
     I've tried to do.''
       Fortunately, her sister remains to carry on the family 
     legacy.
       Sister Hennessey taught many things, including courage, 
     compassion and the importance of independent thought and 
     creative action.
       She taught that aging gracefully can be compatible with 
     living meaningfully, and even dangerously. But most 
     important, she taught that we don't have to stand by in 
     frustration when wrongs are perpetrated, even by our 
     government; that the world is best served when we stand up 
     for what's right. And that you do whatever you can from 
     wherever you are.
       In her case, it was the Lord's work.

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the 
Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business.

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