[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12] [Senate] [Pages 16372-16374] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]TRIBUTE TO CONGRESSMAN PETER W. RODINO, JR. Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, on May 7, former Congressman Peter W. Rodino, Jr. died at his home in West Orange, NJ, at the age of 95. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus at the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he had continued to lecture until just a few months ago. He was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey's 10th congressional district in 1948 and went on to serve 20 terms, retiring in 1989. Throughout his long career he faithfully served the people of his district, and our Nation. It was my great privilege to serve on the House Committee on the Judiciary under his chairmanship, and I shall remember him always as ``Chairman.'' In the Congress, Peter Rodino served on the House Committee on the Judiciary for 24 years before becoming its chairman, quite unexpectedly, in 1973. At just that time it fell to the Judiciary Committee to determine whether the President had acted in violation of fundamental principles of our Constitution and, if so, to undertake the first step in the impeachment procedures that the Constitution sets out. No one understood better than Peter Rodino the magnitude of the challenge. It was, he often said, an ``awesome responsibility.'' As a very junior Member of the House of Representatives, just beginning my second term, it was my great responsibility to serve on the Judiciary Committee under Chairman Rodino during the impeachment inquiry. In a speech on the floor of the House in February, 1974, he set the tone for the work the committee was about to undertake: ``Whatever the result, whatever we learn or conclude, let us now proceed with such care and decency and thoroughness and honor that the vast majority of American people, and their children after them, will say: `That was the right course. There was no other way.''' Chairman Rodino held the committee to those standards. As Michael T. Kaufman wrote in the New York Times on May 9, he proceeded with ``great patience, caution, enormous energy, and fairness above all.'' In his role as chairman, Peter Rodino saw himself as ``teacher, negotiator, leader and symbol,'' striving to achieve ``a spirit of fairness and bipartisanship.'' In this he was successful: members of the committee drew together over the course of the inquiry, approving three articles of impeachment on strong bipartisan votes and, ultimately, reaching unanimity on the need to move the impeachment process forward. Of his service during the impeachment inquiry, Chairman Rodino told his biographer, Gerald Pomper, ``I was just the same Peter Rodino I've been all the time from the very first day I came to the Congress.'' Indeed he was. Throughout his years in the Congress he worked hard, and he brought to his work both a bright and hopeful vision for our country and great skill as a legislator. His legislative achievements were remarkable: major contributions to the great Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s--he served as floor manager of the Civil Rights Act of 1966; passage of landmark fair housing and fair-employment practices legislation; immigration reform that overturned the decades-old system of rigid, country-based quotas. Later he wrote the Voting Rights Extension Act of 1982, and he played a leading role in establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It can be said of Peter Rodino that in his life he embraced the American experience in the 20th century. The child of Italian immigrants, born and raised in the Little Italy neighborhood in Newark, NJ, he earned his law degree over a period of 10 years by working days and taking classes at night. Well before Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, served in the North African and Italian campaigns, received one of the first battlefield commissions, was awarded the Bronze Star, and retired with the rank of captain. Upon leaving the Army, he entered the Congress; upon retiring from the Congress, he joined the faculty of the Seton Hall Law School. There he remained until his death, attentive to the end to his students and colleagues. He believed in our democratic institutions and their capacity to improve the lives of our people. ``There was not a single day of his professional life,'' according to the Dean of Seton Hall Law School, ``when he didn't carry a copy of the Constitution in his pocket.'' The country will forever be grateful to him. Chairman Rodino was remembered by his family, friends, colleagues at Seton Hall Law School and former colleagues in the U.S. House of Representative in a very moving ceremony at St. Lucy Church, Newark NJ, on May 16, 2005. I ask unanimous consent that the homily of the Reverend Nicholas S. Gengaro, Chaplain of the Seton Hall Law School, and the eulogy delivered by Paula A. Franzese, Peter W. Rodino at the Seton Hall Law School, be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Homily of the Reverend Nicholas S. Gengaro FUNERAL MASS, THE HONORABLE PETER W. RODINO, JR., ST. LUCY CHURCH, MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005, 11:00 AM Readings: Wisdom--3:1-9; Romans--8:14-23; Matthew--5:1-12a. The NBC television network will be pleased to hear me claim a place among the fans of its award-winning weekly drama series, The West Wing. I confess that I am drawn in by the promise of a walk down the corridors of power, an ear inside decision-making at the highest level, a look at how things get done in our country, our world. Of course, the show is fiction, but the writers purposely dramatize current events and issues. [[Page 16373]] In an episode this spring, one of the characters running for election to the presidency rebelled against pressure from religious groups to disclose his religious beliefs and practices. ``If the American people begin to insist on knowing where and how often their leaders worship God,'' he declares, ``then, they are begging to be lied to.'' Religion and politics are a volatile mix. Since 1998, when I became chaplain at Seton Hall School of Law, I have had the privilege of knowing the Honorable Peter W. Rodino, Jr. The first time I attended the annual Rodino Law Society Dinner, I spotted the Congressman in the crowd and wrestled down my shyness to walk over and introduce myself. Not only was I aware of the heroic role he had played in our nation's history, but I remembered hearing about him from my childhood, his name spoken by proud Italian American relatives who had been helped personally by him. To me he was a national icon, but also a bit of a ``household god,'' patron of the good name and self-respect of the vast number of Americans whose surnames end in a vowel. That initial conversation lasted nearly an hour. Congressman Rodino remembered my great uncle who ran a business right outside St. Lucy's Church, here at 7th Avenue and Cutler Street. I was to discover over the years that Peter Rodino remembered everything. Young in his nineties, the Congressman could quote statesmen, historians, poets, even song lyrics--sometimes in another language. But most of all he remembered people. In 1977, at the unveiling of the portrait of Congressman Rodino that hangs in the chamber of the House Judiciary Committee, Vice President Walter Mondale suggested that Peter Rodino's ``life has stood and stands for `the love of country and the love of freedom kept pure by the tenderest humanity for all mankind''' (Proceedings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, May 12, 1977, 95th Congress, 1st Session, House Document 95-307, p.8). In other words, Congressman Rodino regarded his career in public service as a labor of love. He often quoted Thomas Paine's axiom ``for those who would enjoy the fruits of liberty, they must first undergo the fatigue of supporting it'' (Address to the Trial Lawyers Association of New Jersey, 2002). As a little boy the Congressman once stood next to his mother listening to the music of the band at a religious festival. He began to wave his hands as if to conduct the band, and continued to do so with glee for song after song. ``Someday you will be a leader of men!'' his mother told him. Peter Rodino, Sr., would remind his son of these words many years later. Fr. Timothy Healy, President of Georgetown University, shortly after the events of Watergate had run their course, arrived at the heart of the matter when he said of Congressman Rodino, ``It took our time of trouble to show us what he really is. As this nation rocked in shame, all of us watched Chairman Rodino manage our destiny. We came to know his calmness, his strength, his sense of order. We grew to trust his honesty. We watched the citizen-politician at work, and as we watched, we rediscovered in him the best of ourselves and of this Nation. Through long and bitter hours, to millions of Americans, Peter Rodino was America.'' Fr. Healy concluded, ``We have seen a just man doing justice'' (Proceedings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, May 12, 1977, 95th Congress, 1st Session, House Document 95-307, pp. 1-2). Is Peter W. Rodino, Jr., a saint? To the countless marks of distinction awarded him in this life--honorary degrees, orders of knighthood, eponymous institutes and chairs of learning--can we suppose him now to be also one of the elect in heaven? Of course, to God alone belongs such a judgment. Yet the Scripture proclaimed in this Mass of Resurrection clearly indicates, ``The souls of the just are in the hand of God.'' The Book of Wisdom explains, ``As gold in the furnace, he proved them.'' The Letter of Paul to the Romans echoes, ``The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.'' Congressman Rodino told me that he kept two texts next to his bed: the Bible and the Constitution of the United States of America. In a speech just this past October, he called the 52 words of the Preamble his ``guiding light'' (Rodino Law Society Dinner, October 27, 2004). He was passionate about the imperative found there ``to secure the Blessings of Liberty.'' ``The Blessings of Liberty'' was a favorite theme of his. The word ``blessing'' was as important to him as the word ``liberty.'' He firmly believed that the great nation of the United States of America would lose its way if it ceased to be aware that every good thing, and especially freedom, is bestowed according to the providence of a higher power. For this reason, in 1954, he was a sponsor of the legislation which added the words ``under God'' to the Pledge of Allegiance. ``We deliberately left the phrase short and vague so as to offend no creed and embrace all possible concepts of the higher power. The point is to preserve us from arrogance,'' he explained to me. Every day of his life, Congressman Rodino prayed the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. ``Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow your love. Where there is injury, pardon; doubt, faith; despair, hope; darkness, light; sadness, joy.'' This prayer of the 13th century saint, co-patron of Italy, is itself a reflection on Matthew's so-called ``Beatitudes'' from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. We heard the proclamation: ``Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . they who mourn . . . the meek . . . they who hunger and thirst for righteous- ness . . . the merciful . . . the clean of heart . . . the peacemakers . . . they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. . . .'' Can we not see how the Honorable Peter Rodino implemented these texts in his life? Is it an accident that countless immigrants were given hope and a new start in a land of opportunity because of legislation he sponsored to remove unfair quotas? Is it a coincidence that this man of integrity evolved to serve a new constituency in his district in the 1960s, that he became a champion of civil rights and voting rights for all citizens regardless of race, color or creed, identifying himself with the persecuted and those hungering and thirsting for righteousness? Was he reciting St. Francis to himself and remembering the Beatitudes when he took part in disarmament conferences and the stability and security efforts of the parliamentary arm of NATO? ``Make me an instrument of your peace. . . .'' In his recent volume, Ordinary Heroes and American Democracy, Gerald M. Pomper, in the chapter ``Peter Rodino: A hero of the House,'' writes, ``Our concept of the democratic hero looks for heroism among ordinary people doing their customary work in the moments of crisis.'' He dubs Peter Rodino a ``workhorse'' of the U.S. House of Representatives, and reminds us of the messiness with which the work of democracy proceeds in that body, by compromise, consensus- building, careful and dexterous application of the rules. I would like to suggest that Peter Rodino is also an ordinary hero of his faith. Like the character in The West Wing, he eschewed a flamboyant, pretentious, self-conscious politician's instrumentalization of religious practice, which threatens democracy with theocracy. Instead, to paraphrase the prophet Micah, he knew the right, he did the right and he walked humbly with his God. The Catholic funeral liturgy is a celebration of hope. Four days before his death, Congressman Rodino sat in his recliner chair when I visited him. His breathing was labored and he struggled to stay awake. At one point he forced his eyes wide open and asked, ``What's the world situation?'' Sure I had heard wrong, I began naming a number of comfort items I supposed he was wanting: Water? Juice? Another blanket? ``Do you want me to get Joy?'' I asked. ``The world!'' he reiterated, certainly annoyed with my narrow focus on conveniences. ``Tell me about the world. What's happening?'' This man was not leaving this life, this world that had held him in endless fascination, one moment sooner than he absolutely had to. Nor is he absent from us now. The Honorable Peter W. Rodino, Jr., is heir to the promise made to all who are baptized into Christ, of life unending with his Creator. May his be the blessings of a liberty far greater than we now know how to ask for or imagine. With St. Francis we conclude, ``For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.'' By Rev. Nicholas S. Gengaro Chaplain, Seton Hall School of Law. ____ Keep That Good Heart: The Life and Legacy of Congressman Peter W. Rodino (By Paula A. Franzese, Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law, Seton Hall Law School; Prof. Franzese Delivered the Eulogy at Cong. Rodino's Funeral on May 16, 2005) The last words spoken to me by my beloved mentor and friend, Cong. Peter W. Rodino, just days before his passing, were: ``Keep that good heart.'' In those four words we find the measure of the man and the magnitude of his legacy. Keep that good heart, mindful that there will be many temptations to do otherwise. This life can be a vessel of sadness, but even in the face of all disenchantment and cynicism and disappointment, still, keep that good heart. Peter asked us to be relentless in our capacity to anchor ourselves in love, in compassion, in humility, in virtue, no matter the adversity, no matter the turmoil, no matter the naysayers. We live in a world that finds itself preoccupied with glamour and status and fortune and fame. Yet, here is this iconic public figure, who walked with kings and held the hand of a nation as he navigated the way out of a constitutional crisis of unparalleled dimension, this luminary and dignitary, this man of the House, who valued, above all else, goodness of heart. He respected intelligence, and he was brilliant, but he respected kindness even more. [[Page 16374]] And so it was, with great love, that this humble boy from Newark, the son of a carpenter and the child of Italian immigrants, moved mountains. His illustrious career in the House of Representatives began in 1948, and spanned four decades. Always, he ran on his own terms, never beholden to anyone or anything. He sought public office as a politician in the highest and best sense of the word. He was a champion of the underdog, a spokesman for those without a voice. It has been said that the principal cause of human suffering is forgetfulness. Peter never forgot who he was, what he stood for or where he came from. John Henry Newman wrote, ``I sought to hear the voice of God, and climbed the topmost steeple. But God declared, `Go down again. I dwell among the people.''' Peter Rodino heard the voice of God in the voices of the people. And there, he found the courage to do what needed to be done. He came to the House to accomplish civil rights reform, to redress the inequities of the nation's immigration laws and to promote equal access to justice for all. And so he did. Quietly, during a time when such an agenda for reform was fiercely unpopular, he worked relentlessly, securing a seat on the House Judiciary Committee and serving as a key lieutenant whose work in the trenches, on the floor of the House, helped to secure the passage of virtually every major civil rights bill, including the watershed Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, Alabama contains the historic photograph of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing that landmark legislation into law, flanked by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to his left and Congressman Peter Rodino to his right. Peter Rodino was a champion for the cause of civil rights and civil liberties because he chose to be a man for all people, irrespective of race, class, gender or ethnic origin. It is no accident that, until his last days on Earth, he carried in his pocket a tattered copy of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. The Preamble begins with the words, ``We the people.'' It holds out the promise that the blessings of liberty belong not just to some of us, but to all of us. And so it was that this great patriot had a date with destiny. In 1974, as a country on the brink of a constitutional impasse waited, and this fourteen year old sat transfixed in front of the TV set, the Watergate hearings began, and we found a hero. In Peter Rodino, humility met preparation, and that boy from Barringer High School, who had dedicated a lifetime to the cause of fundamental fairness and equal justice under law, accepted the challenge. We watched as the gentleman from Newark, carrying the weight of a nation's suffering on his shoulders, stood firm and dignified and tall, never wavering from his reverence for the office of the presidency and never departing from his conviction that our great democracy would withstand, indeed, transcend, this greatest test. Because of him, it did. And because of him, we did. In the process, Peter Rodino gave us all something that we so desperately needed. He gave us hope. Timothy White wrote, ``Historically, certain figures emerge from despairing cultures to reinterpret old symbols and beliefs and invest them with new meaning. An individual's decision to play such a role may be purely unconscious, but it can sometimes evolve into an acute awareness that he or she may indeed have the gift, as well as the burden, of prophecy.'' Peter Rodino was such a figure. Sen. Ted Kennedy, in sending his condolences, said: ``Many of us felt as we watched the Watergate hearings that we were seeing a founding father in action, living the highest ideals of the Constitution. I'm sure my brother would have called him a profile in courage. I feel the same way, and I'll never forget him.'' When all is said and done, none of us will ever forget Peter Rodino, because of the way that he made us feel. His life bears living witness to the greatness of our nation. His story reminds us that we live in a world of infinite possibilities, and that there is a force that meets good with good. We watched, and we knew. Here was a gifted leader who was, first and foremost, a good person. It is a testament to the man that, when the vote to impeach was rendered, rather than grandstand or resort to petty partisanship, he retreated to his private chambers and he wept. Always, he kept that good heart. Peter spoke to our community just months ago, at Seton Hall Law School's Rodino Dinner, where he urged us all to live a life that matters. What will matter, he said, is not your success, but your significance; not what you bought but what you built. Implicit in all that he stood for is the premise that people can be mean and cruel and irresponsible, but it is up to us to love them anyway. If you commit to goodness and to compassionate honesty in a world fraught with too much brutal honesty, you may be accused of insincerity or of building pies in the sky. But commit to the virtuous path anyway. And if you dare to believe in the majesty of your dreams, so that you do what you can with what you have, your heart may sometimes break. But a broken heart has more room. Peter, today we bask in the glow of your magnificent heart. And although our own hearts ache because your days on Earth have come to an end, we know that the angels rejoiced as they welcomed you home. We know that you must have received the most extraordinary standing ovation of all time, amidst the resounding cheers and the tears of joy, all proclaiming: ``Well done, Mr. Chairman, well done.'' ____________________