January 13, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks E79 

laughed and planned for more than 30 years— 

strikes me as a concise summary of the man. 

Over the fireplace hung an old etching of 

Jerusalem, identical to that which once 

adorned the office of Teddy Kollek, the city’s 

longtime mayor: for Neuhaus lived, thought 

and wrote within a thoroughly biblical cast 

of mind, in which the earthly Jerusalem represents the New Jerusalem of the Book of 

Revelation—the fulfillment of humanity’s 

deepest spiritual longings. On one wall was 

an abstract, modernistic print of a boy 

riding a Chagall-like bird: ‘‘That’s little 

Dickie Neuhaus,’’ he once told me, ‘‘riding 

the Holy Spirit.’’ A Byzantine icon of his patron, the apostle John, marked another wall, 

with a vigil light burning before it; Richard 

used to joke that his Lutheran pastorate, the 

church of St. John the Evangelist in the then 

desperately poor Bedford-Stuyvesant section 

of Brooklyn, was ‘‘St. John the Mundane,’’ 

as distinguished from the Episcopalian Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 

Morningside Heights. There was a colossal 

sound system, for he loved music, especially 

Bach; there were bookcases containing the 

Lutheran Book of Worship, from which he 

and the ecumenical Community of Christ in 

the City, with whom he lived, prayed vespers 

every evening, before and after his reception 

into the Catholic Church; and there were 

ample supplies of bourbon and cigars, both of 

which Richard regarded as essential complements to the ongoing, boisterous conversation that was his intellectual and spiritual lifeblood. 

For a man of sharply expressed opinions, 

he was also a skilled listener and a gentle 

counselor, with a particular care for helping 

young men and women figure out what God 

had in mind for their lives. In the Catholic 

phase of his ministry, which began after his 

ordination by Cardinal John O’Connor in 

1991, an act which he regarded as completing 

his commitment to Lutheranism as a reform 

movement within the one Church of Christ, 

he served a working-class parish, as he had 

done as a Lutheran; in both cases, he declined to preach ‘‘down’’ to his congregations, such that his challenging sermons 

deepened many people’s faith. He was generous in supporting the poor throughout the 

world, giving away a significant portion of 

his lecture fees and book royalties. 

Richard Neuhaus was also an American patriot with a critical love for the country to 

which he moved, permanently, at age 15, 

after a rambunctious childhood and adolescence in Pembroke, Ontario, where his father 

was a Lutheran pastor. As a teenager, he ran 

a filling station in Cisco, Texas—likely the 

only counselor of two popes and several 

presidents who ever joined the Texas Chamber of Commerce at age 16. His distinguished 

career as a public intellectual led some to 

think that he was embroidering things a bit 

when he claimed he had never graduated 

from high school; but he hadn’t. 

He had the remarkable, and mathematically counterintuitive, ability to multiply 

his enthusiasm and energy while dividing it 

with others. That was a grace. And that is 

one of the many reasons why so many of us 

will miss him as we shall miss few others. 

f 

A TRIBUTE TO REV. WALTER E. 

FAUNTROY, FORMER MEMBER 

OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 

50TH ANNIVERSARY AT AND RETIREMENT FROM NEW BETHEL 

BAPTIST CHURCH 

HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise for 

the uniquely important occasion of honoring a 

man I am pleased to call a personal friend, but 

more important, a distinguished former member of the House of Representatives, and my 

predecessor, Walter E. Fauntroy, on the occasion of his 50th anniversary and simultaneous 

retirement as pastor from the New Bethel Baptist Church, one of the great churches in our 

Nation’s capital. Many of you remember Rev. 

Fauntroy as your distinguished colleague. You 

already know that Walter has lived the lives of 

several men—a distinguished minister, a 

Member of this Congress, a civil rights leader, 

a scholar, a devoted husband and a father. 

Consequently, when America hears the name 

Walter Fauntroy, we think of more than one 

man, because he has done the work of several energetic men, often at the same time. It 

is difficult to find an American who has played 

so many important leadership roles and who 

has been so deeply a part of actually weaving 

a new fabric of equality and justice for our 

country. 

Rev. Fauntroy was sworn in as a Member of 

the House of Representatives, the District of 

Columbia’s first delegate in the 20th century, 

on March 23, 1971. For 10 terms, he helped 

shape national policy, serving on important 

committees and subcommittees, including the 

House, Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs 

Committee, the Subcommittee on Domestic 

Monetary Policy, which he chaired for 6 years, 

and the Subcommittee on International Development, Finance, Trade, and Monetary Policy, 

which he chaired, for 4 years. As a Member, 

Congressman Fauntroy also chaired the Bipartisan/Bicameral Task Force on Haiti for 15 

years. Before I was elected, I was pleased to 

join Congressman Fauntroy and two others at 

a sit-in at the South African Embassy to 

launch the ‘‘Free South Africa’’ movement, 

which ultimately led to the end of apartheid. 

Congressman Fauntroy is very fondly remembered here as a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and was its chair 

from 1981 to 1983. 

Before the District of Columbia achieved 

home rule, President Lydon B. Johnson appointed Rev. Fauntroy to the DC city council, 

where he served from 1967 to 1969. For his 

leadership in the home rule struggle, the people of the District of Columbia showed their 

confidence in Rev. Fauntroy by electing him to 

the House of Representatives. In Congress, 

Fauntroy was a father of home rule for the 

District of Columbia, which allowed the District 

to elect its own Mayor and city council. 

Even before his election, Fauntroy was a 

national figure in the civil rights movement and 

a key advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Rev. King named him director of his Washington bureau of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and national coordinator of 

the Poor People’s Campaign. He later was 

chair of the board of directors of the Martin 

Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change in 

Atlanta, Georgia. 

I am pleased to join the congregation of 

New Bethel Baptist Church and I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Rev. Walter 

Fauntroy for his unusually successful and 

dedicated life of service to the people of the 

United States of America, the residents of the 

District of Columbia, and the congregation of 

the New Bethel Baptist Church. 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with REMARKS