    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [November 14, 1996]
    [Page 2116]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Statement on the Death of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
    November 14, 1996

        Hillary and I were deeply saddened to learn of the death last night
    of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the Archbishop of Chicago, one of our
    Nation's most beloved men and one of Catholicism's great leaders.
        Hillary and I loved and admired Cardinal Bernardin very much. In my
    conversation with him yesterday, I had the opportunity to remind
    Cardinal Bernardin of our deep feeling for him and of our admiration for
    his life's work. I am grateful today that I had that opportunity. Our
    conversation reminded me of the strength, grace, and dignity with which
    he lived his life on Earth and with which he prepared to leave this life
    for the next.
        Throughout his life, Cardinal Bernardin devoted himself to bringing
    out the best in humanity and to bringing together those who were
    divided. He fought tirelessly against social injustice, poverty, and
    ignorance. As I said in September when I had the honor of presenting
    Cardinal Bernardin with the Medal of Freedom, Cardinal Bernardin was
    both a remarkable man of God and a man of the people.
        Both in life and in death, he taught us the important lessons of
    community, caring, and common ground. To quote the Archbishop himself
    from one of his last public appearances on October 24 of this year: ``A
    dying person does not have time for the peripheral or the accidental. He
    or she is drawn to the essential, the important. And what is important
    is that we find that unity with the Lord and within the community of
    faith for which Jesus prayed so fervently on the night before he died.
    To say it quite boldly, it is wrong to waste the precious gift of time
    given to us on acrimony and division.''