Nancy Pelosi: “a little over a week ago our country suffered a great loss with the passing of Father Robert Drinan. He was a great man.…”

“a little over a week ago our country suffered a great loss with the passing of Father Robert Drinan. He was a great man. He was a great humanitarian. He was a priest and he was a Member of Congress. When asked to talk about Father Drinan, it is impossible not to speak in the superlative in every case. And also the words that I would like to use are to quote a great man, Father Drinan himself. At his funeral, which I had the privilege to eulogize Father Drinan, I said that when Saint Francis of Assisi, who is the patron saint of my City of San Francisco, when St. Francis of Assisi was asked what a person had to do to lead a good and virtual life, he said, Saint Francis did, ``Preach the gospel. Sometimes use words.'' Father Robert Drinan preached the gospel, sometimes from the pulpit, sometimes from the floor of this House for 10 years as a Member of Congress, and sometimes from the classroom at the Georgetown University School of Law. But he always preached the gospel through the power of his example. Father Drinan lived and legislated according to an expansive view of the gospel, believing that it had something to teach us about the whole range of public policy, from war and peace to poverty and justice, to how we treat our children and our parents. It was because of his faith that he was one of our great champions for human rights. He believed that there was a spark of divinity in every person, and he acted upon that belief. But he did so selflessly.”