[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 8924]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO FATHER HENNESSEY

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute and say 
goodbye to a long time friend, Father Ron Hennessey, whose recent 
passing is a great loss not only to his colleagues, his family, and his 
friends but to everyone who knew him. I'm saying goodbye to Father Ron, 
but we will never say goodbye to his heart, his spirit, or his soul.
  Father Ron was a native of Iowa and graduated from St. Patrick's High 
School in Ryan, Iowa. After graduating, he was drafted into the U.S. 
Army and served as a mechanic and later a Motor Sergeant in Korea. 
While in Korea, he was awarded three Bronze Stars for valor during his 
military service. Under the Eisenhower Christmas Program, he returned 
to the United States and was released from active service on December 
9, 1953. He entered Maryknoll Junior Seminary in Pennsylvania and five 
years later graduated from Maryknoll College in Illinois in June of 
1958. Father Hennessey was ordained at Maryknoll Seminary in New York 
on June 13, 1964.
  Father Ron devoted his life to international peace and justice, Mr. 
President, dedicating almost 35 years of his life as a Maryknoll priest 
in Central America. Much of this time was spent in Guatemala and El 
Salvador. Soon after being ordained, he was assigned to the Diocese of 
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Several years later, he became the Pastor in 
San Mateo Ixtatan, Guatemala. It is during this time that Father 
Hennessey became very involved in the human rights struggle of the 
local Mayan Indians. He placed himself in great danger by smuggling 
letters out of Guatemala detailing the atrocities committed against the 
Mayan Indians in his rural parish. Those atrocities, Father Ron wrote, 
were being committed by the Guatemalan military under the orders of 
President Rios Montt. I remember one letter in particular in which 
Father Ron listed 20 instances in his parish alone in which military 
forces committed gross acts of violence.
  Sadly, the United States Government at the time, supported this 
oppressive regime. In fact, our own State Department downplayed the 
human rights violations being committed in Guatemala, and in my view 
making us complicit in those heinous crimes.
  By shining the spotlight on these atrocities, Father Ron's life was 
in constant danger. But that did not stop him. He stayed in Guatemala 
until 1986 despite having three opportunities to leave.
  From Guatemala he went to El Salvador to re-establish a Maryknoll 
presence there after a five year absence. There he served in a parish 
on the outskirts of San Salvador that had had no priest since the 
Church was bombed in 1980.
  In 1989, when the Salvadoran military murdered six Jesuit priests, 
their housekeeper and her daughter, Father Hennessey and his fellow 
Maryknollers chose to remain in the country even as scores of North 
American missionaries and aid workers decided to leave because the 
situation had become too dangerous for those who stood up for human 
rights and the rule of law. But Father Hennessey continued his work, 
standing side by side with his parishioners.
  Father Hennessey once again took up residence again in Guatemala in 
1992 until earlier this year when he was assigned to the Maryknoll 
mission in Los Angeles.
  And so, Mr. President, Father Hennessey will be greatly missed by all 
of us. And while he may have physically departed, his spirit will never 
desert us.
  Which is the second reason I rise today, Mr. President--to affirm an 
ancient native American saying: To live in the hearts of those you 
love, is not to die.
  Father Ron, your spirit does live on through who knew you, whose 
lives you touched, and through them the countless thousands whose lives 
were enriched because of you. You will be remembered by us, each in a 
different way.
  Finally, Mr. President, I can think of no better way to remember my 
friend Father Ron than with the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero: I 
have no ambition of power, and so with complete freedom I tell the 
powerful what is good and what is bad, and I tell any political group 
what is good and what is bad. That is my duty.

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