A moral giant who passed this way
The Honorable Congressman Henry Hyde has passed away. He was one of the noblest of America’s leaders, a rare member of Congress still worthy of the designation “leader.”
I’ve been working over the past half year on the project of writing a book about him and with his input. I’ve been trying to arrange the first sit-down interview with him for months, but his health suffered considerably in the meantime and it had to wait…
However, there is no lack of his own words that reflect his great intellect and esteemed wisdom. He’s probably best known widely for the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding for abortions.
I recall, vividly, his eloquent speech on the floor of the House during the impeachment hearings on President Clinton. Congressman Hyde invoked the name of Sir Thomas More, another great member of his (British) government and servant of the people, “but God’s first”, as More said just before his execution. The quote Congressman Hyde cited from Thomas More was the famous one about a man holding his soul in his hands like water, and should he hold it loosely it would trickle away and he would lose it.
Congressman Hyde was a powerful speaker, whose eloquence came not only from being a gifted orator but a humble man of great faith. He gave me one of his last copies of a book he wrote many years ago, “For Every Idle Silence.” Inside the jacket, was this quote:
Not only for every idle word but for every idle silence must man render an account. – St. Ambrose
It’s keenly interesting today to look at it again and see that the first chapter is titled “Why Has Politics Become So Religious (and Religion So Political)?” It begins:
Two interrelated issues loom above all others in the contemporary political scene: the role of religion in politics and the phenomenon of abortion. The 1984 presidential campaign featured a furious debate about religion and religious leaders in politics.
And look at where we are today.
Congressman Hyde continued, back then:
Legalized abortion, with its manifold consequences and implications, is playing an increasingly important role in national politics. It is the paramount issue in what I consider to be the decisive conflict of our day–the struggle over values in our national life.
It grew bitter then, which provides deeper context to current politics. Congressman Hyde recounted the bitter court battle in 1977 over the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment, a battle waged by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. He notes that he and the lawyers working with him “were grappling with supporters of abortion in a case that would determine whether thousands of unborn children would be permitted to live.”
The case was also full of intriguing constitutional questions. One of the most interesting of these, at least in the minds of the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, was the fact that I was a Catholic. They developed the theory that the Hyde Amendment “used the fist of the government so smash the wall of separation between church and state by imposing a peculiarly religous view of when a human life begins.”
The ACLU and Planned Parenthood had Congressman Hyde followed by a private investigator, who even followed him to Mass.
The private eye went so far as to write down a famous quotation written on a statue of St. Thomas More, one of my heroes and patron of the cathedral: “I die the king’s good servant but God’s first.”
Congressman Henry Hyde was a great servant of the people of the United States. He served and governed according to natural law and moral order, informed by a conscience rooted in faith. The pro-life world, together with all the people he served, lose a gentle giant.
Requiescat in pacem.