[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 17294]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     RETIREMENT OF FRANK J. MONAHAN

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to pay tribute 
to the distinguished career of Frank Monahan, who will retire in a few 
days after 36 years of service to the U.S. Conference of Catholic 
Bishops.
  Since 1971, Frank Monahan has worked on many of the great social 
justice issues of our day, always taking the side of the vulnerable, 
the voiceless, and the victims, always standing firm in his belief that 
here on earth, God's work must be our own. In the finest Jesuit 
tradition of his alma mater, Loyola University of Chicago, Frank 
Monahan is a man who has dedicated himself to serving others.
  Early in his career, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria. He 
was responding to President Kennedy's call to a new generation of 
Americans to engage themselves in public service and to help spread 
hope and the message of peace and cooperation throughout the world. He 
went on to work in Chicago public schools, helping to implement 
antipoverty programs and improve school lunch programs so that poor and 
hungry children would be free to learn, without fear of want.
  His good nature, strong commitment, and eternal optimism that we can 
leave the world better than we found it will be missed by all of us in 
Congress, but they will not soon be forgotten.
  It has been my great privilege through the years--under seven 
different Presidential administrations--to work with Frank on issues of 
fundamental fairness and justice. When I think of him, I am reminded of 
my brother Robert F. Kennedy's words:

       Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve 
     the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends 
     forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a 
     million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples 
     build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of 
     oppression and resistance.

  I commend Frank Monahan for the countless ripples of hope he has sent 
out in his career.
  We will be sad to see him leave, but heart in the fact that this 
great friend and ally will continue, in new and different fields, to 
live out the words of the Gospel of Mathew:

       For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and 
     you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and 
     you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you 
     visited me.

  He has certainly earned his retirement. As Frank and his family look 
forward to meeting the new challenges and opportunities that lay ahead, 
I am sure God is looking down on him now and saying, ``Well done, my 
good and faithful servant.''

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