[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 46 (Monday, November 18, 1996)]
[Page 2390]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.''