[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 4, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1607-H1608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        HONORING THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF FATHER THEODORE HESBURGH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 
great life of Father Hesburgh.
  Today I looked up on Wikipedia some information about Father 
Hesburgh. It says:

       Born: Theodore Martin Hesburgh, May 25, 1917, Syracuse, New 
     York, United States. Died: February 26, 2015 (age 97), Notre 
     Dame, Indiana, United States. Alma mater: The Catholic 
     University of America. Profession: Priest. Religion: Roman 
     Catholic.

  And then it shows his signature.
  Well, today, in South Bend, Indiana, and on the University of 
Indiana, flags are flown at halfstaff to honor the passing of a giant 
among men, a warrior for peace and a champion for civil rights, Father 
Theodore Hesburgh.
  I want you to just think for a minute and let your mind drift to what 
we will see in the future as a tombstone that is going to have Father 
Hesburgh's name, and it is going to say: Born May 25, 1917; died 
February 26, 2015. And I want you to forget about those two dates and, 
for a minute, think about the 97 years in between those dates--not just 
the day Father Hesburgh was born or the day Father Hesburgh died, but 
the 97 years that Father Hesburgh spent on Earth doing great work 
because, truly, a man is measured not so much by his years on Earth but 
what he accomplished while he was here.
  For those of us at Notre Dame, I think it is important to go back and 
think about just who Father Ted was. Father actually passed away last 
Thursday at 11:30 p.m.
  I want you to think about Father Hesburgh's last day. He rose in the 
morning. It was very important for him to celebrate Mass, which he did 
that day. Throughout the course of the day, he wasn't feeling quite 
right; but, again, he was 97 years old. That evening, as he was 
accustomed to do, he smoked a cigar, and then he went to bed. And for 
whatever reason, he was surrounded by some very good friends, but he 
was also surrounded by a nun.
  Father Hesburgh's last moments were the recitation of the rosary. 
Now, he was very fluent in five different languages. The language that 
he thought was the most beautiful was the French language, and the 
rosary was recited in French.

                              {time}  1545

  Picture, if you can, a 97-year-old man lying in a bed, friends around 
him, knowing that something was going to happen, and Father Hesburgh 
closed his eyes and passed. But think about the glorious moment right 
after the closing of those eyes. Because in the next instant they were 
opened, not on Earth, not on the University of Notre Dame, not in a bed 
where he was a dying old man, but in Heaven, surrounded by all those 
folks who knew Father Ted, who loved Father Ted, and who have been 
patiently waiting for his arrival, because that is what we believe. We 
know that he is at home.
  Now, I told you Father Hesburgh was born in Syracuse, New York. He 
was educated at Notre Dame and at the Gregorian University in Rome, 
from which he received a bachelor of philosophy degree. He was ordained 
a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Sacred Heart Church, now 
the Basilica, on Notre Dame campus in June of 1943.
  Earlier today, Mr. Speaker, at 2 o'clock, the funeral mass for Father 
Hesburgh was held at this very same church, Sacred Heart Basilica on 
our beautiful and beloved campus. Now, as I stand here, the funeral 
mass for Father Ted is concluding, and the Notre Dame community will be 
following Father Ted on St. Mary's Road out to his final resting place 
at the Holy Cross Community Cemetery. It will be a sad march, but it 
will also be a rejoicing march because certainly we miss him, and we 
are going to miss him, but we rejoice in what he was able to 
accomplish.
  For generations of students at Notre Dame, Father Hesburgh was simply 
known as Father Ted. That is all--Father Ted. Now, I was one of those 
people that was fortunate enough to be there when Father Ted was there. 
And some of my colleagues, I think that Peter King was there, Peter 
Visclosky was there, Keith Rothfus was there, and my good friend 
Senator Joe Donnelly was there. Today Senators Donnelly and Coats and I 
wanted to pay tribute to this national treasure by introducing a 
bicameral resolution to honor the life of this truly amazing man. 
Father Ted faithfully served Notre Dame for decades. He served as Notre 
Dame's president from 1952 to 1987.
  Now, I want you to think about what Father Ted has done, because 
mostly when people talk about Notre Dame, they say, oh, yeah, heck of a 
football team, and at times we have been very good. But he was able to 
transition us from not just a team or a little school in the Midwest 
that was known for the way it played football--and we were originally 
called the Ramblers. We were not called the Fighting Irish. We were 
called the Ramblers because we had no home, and so we kind of had to go 
around the country to play different teams, so we kind of rambled 
around the country. We were the Ramblers. Then we adopted the name 
Fighting Irish, and it was for the very immigrants that came to the 
university. It was one of those universities that honored the fact that 
people were coming from all over the world. They were coming to the 
United States, and there were really not a lot of institutions of 
higher learning that they could get entrance to. Notre Dame was one of 
those institutions.
  So his leadership at Notre Dame just didn't stop in South Bend, and 
it certainly didn't stop at the university's gates. His commitment to 
education and social justice extended way beyond the boundaries of my 
alma mater and well beyond Indiana and, in fact, well beyond America's 
shores. His dedication is one of shared humanity that knew absolutely 
no bounds.
  His strong belief that what unites us is far greater than that which 
divides us made him a champion of civil discourse and social justice. 
One only needs to look at a photo that I brought with me today, and in 
the annals of America, it is hard to look at Dr. King and Father Ted 
and not look at these two lions for social justice, these two lions for 
civil rights, to understand that they were locked arm in arm on a 
mission that they knew had to take place and that they could no longer 
turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to. That is who Father Ted was. He 
believed to the very soul of who he was, the very fabric of who this 
man was, that this is what America needed. He not only preached it, he 
not only taught it, he lived it.
  So this week, Mr. Speaker--and, truly, I think it is almost 
providential--is the 50th anniversary of the march on Selma's Edmund 
Pettus Bridge, commemorates the 50th anniversary. Again, this was 
called Bloody Sunday. This was in 1965. It is hard for us to imagine 
that that could have taken place, but it did. In fact, we will 
celebrate the 50th anniversary of it this Saturday. That is what helped 
secure the passage of the Voting Rights Act so that every American 
citizen could equally participate in her democratic process. This was a 
milestone. This just wasn't something to be marked on a calendar. This 
was a great event in terms of how we advanced democracy in our country.
  Now, as we honor Selma's legacy this Saturday, I know that the 
spirits of these two great lions, these people that really stood up and 
took time to stand up when it wasn't really easy to stand up and it 
certainly took a lot of courage, they stood up to what they knew to be 
right, for what they knew to be true, and for what they knew to be 
truly American.
  Now, as I said earlier, I just can imagine right now that when Father 
closed his eyes last Thursday night and

[[Page H1608]]

then suddenly opened them, again, who was around him? Who surrounded 
him? Whom he was able to share that moment with is incredible. I am 
sure Dr. King was there with him.
  Now, over the years, this man, Father Hesburgh, held 16 Presidential 
appointments that covered every type of major social concern and civil 
rights concern to Third World development that a person could possibly 
understand, and also campus unrest. He won the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom. He won the Congressional Gold Medal. He won the Sylvanus 
Thayer Award, and he won the Public Welfare Medal. And though he 
counseled Popes and Presidents, Father Hesburgh was first and foremost 
a priest, a priest on the campus of Notre Dame. He had said: ``I never 
really wanted to be anything but a priest, which is in itself a great 
and unearned grace. I hope to live and die a priest, nothing more, but 
nothing less either.''
  Now, for decades, he has been considered the most influential priest 
in America, and the world he looked at as his flock. He was truly a 
shepherd who lived with his flock. He demonstrated this by his tireless 
work and his historic service to our country, to our church, and to the 
world.
  Robert Whittington, a contemporary of Sir Thomas More, in 1520 wrote 
of Sir Thomas More:
  ``He is a man of angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his 
fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness, and 
affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and 
pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.''
  At the end of the day, Father Hesburgh was truly America's 
Renaissance man. He was truly our ``man for all seasons.'' And much 
like Sir Thomas More was to his contemporaries over 500 years ago, 
Father Ted has left this world a better place because he took it upon 
himself the responsibility to inspire others here and abroad to pursue 
a life of justice and peace. Truly blessed are the peacemakers.
  Now, as Father Hesburgh was known to say, he, too, is ``resting in 
the loving hands of our Savior, bathed in the light of eternal life.'' 
These words were spoken by Father Hesburgh to Secretary Condoleezza 
Rice upon the passing of her father. He is now at peace with God. He is 
with the God he served so well during his lifetime on Earth.

  I will leave you with this one thought. A good friend of mine that I 
grew up with and graduated with, a guy named Larry Vuillemin, had gone 
to see Father.
  Keith Rothfus and I, by the way, a year ago, received his blessing 
when he was here. We were celebrating his birthday. We knelt down, and 
he gave us his blessing.
  Father said to Larry Vuillemin when they were having a talk about 
ethics, he said: Larry, ethics is fun to intellectualize, but ethics 
without the heart is missing something.
  So if we can just concentrate on those words, let those words soak in 
and seep in to who we are, then I think we can truly not only honor 
him, but honor him in a way that really means the most, and that is by 
emulating his life and trying to carry forward the same issues that 
Father had.
  I know he is now at peace with the God he has served so well during 
his life. May peace be with him.
  I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

                          ____________________