Timothy John Russert, R.I.P.
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 20, 2008
No matter how many times we hear the Lord's words, "You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect" (Mt 24:44), they seem always to catch us off guard.
That happened for so many of us on Friday afternoon when we learned that the Lord had come unexpectedly for Tim Russert. Like with the sudden death of a family member, everything seemed to stop and to change.
It was a surreal experience to turn on the television on Friday night and see not just NBC and MSNBC, but also Fox News and CNN — from whom routinely Russert siphoned viewers on Sunday mornings and on election Tuesday evenings — stopping their regularly-scheduled programs to do hour-long tributes remembering him, like they would at the death of a president. There was something tremendously fitting about this. It was equally as appropriate that on all of the programs, the guests were not recycling the stale clichés and hollow sympathies that so often get expressed at the death of public figures, but were telling personal stories of how kind he had been to them in helping them get their start in journalism, or when they were going through a tough time, or when someone they lost someone they loved.
Tim Russert was a unique and transcendent figure in the media business precisely because he always chose happily to remain a humble everyman — hardworking, full of joy, down-to-earth, principled and good. In an age in which puffed-up celebrities readily trade their birthrights for a Beverly Hills zip code, he always bragged that he was from Buffalo and stated proudly that his hero was the garbage-collecting World War II veteran he had the honor to call his dad. In a cynical Washington political culture in which lying has become an art form, he, with the tenacity of a pit-bull and the fairness of a respectful and respected prosecutor, always surgically sliced through the spin to expose the truth. More than any other recent figure, he kept Washington honest and accountable. He did his job with the professional excellence with which every Catholic should fulfill his or her vocation.
Tim Russert credited his upbringing with making him who he was. In a 2006 interview with The Anchor, he affectionately talked about how his mother and father passed on to him the treasure of the faith. "My parents had such a strong Catholic faith, and they shared that with their children," he said. "As children, as a family we would attend Mass together, novenas together, say the rosary together, and pray the Stations of the Cross together… My mom and dad lived their faith and my three sisters and I learned what it meant to be Catholic by that example." As a colleague noted after his death, he always kept his Rosary on him until the day he died.
His parents sacrificed tremendously to send him to Catholic schools, where the formation of his character and the development of his talents continued. When he was in seventh grade at Buffalo's St. Bonaventure School, Mercy Sister Mary Lucille Socciarelli, now on the Catholic pastoral care staff at Charlton Hospital in Fall River, did something that he would later say changed the entire trajectory of his life. She founded a school newspaper that needed a founding editor. Believing in Tim's talents, she appointed him to the position. That was the beginning of a life-long friendship. "Sister Lucille has been an enormous influence for most of my life, and she knows it" he told The Anchor in 2006.
Russert worked hard to make it possible for others to receive the same gift of Catholic schooling. In September 2006, he was the keynote speaker at the Diocese of Fall River's St. Mary's Education Fund dinner, which raises hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money each year so that young people from poor families can attend Catholic schools in our diocese. He did the same in ten other dioceses. Catholic schools "taught me not just to read and right but also how to tell right from wrong," he expressed with gratitude at the 2000 National Catholic Education Association convention
He also worked, along with his wife Maureen, to pass on the lessons of the Catholic faith to his son, Luke, who graduated last month from Boston College. "We've tried to instill in Luke the same values and faith we received," he told The Anchor with paternal pride. "Luke went through CCD, made his first Communion and Confirmation. He understands his faith and has seen it in action with his parents and his grandparents. At B.C. he chooses to attend Sunday Mass," a witness that son, like father, is freely putting the faith into action.
The example of Russert's faith was also often seen in action in our Diocese, at St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle Church in Nantucket, where the Russerts had a summer home. Every Sunday he was on the Island, his former pastor Paul Caron told me a few days ago, he would be present at Mass, either standing at the back of the Church or sitting with his wife and son. Fr. Caron, now pastor of St. Rita's in Marion, said that he was an "excellent Catholic who loved his faith and wanted to talk about his faith."
One event that Tim Russert routinely talked about was meeting Pope John Paul II in preparation for a 1985 NBC interview. "You could still see the excitement in his eyes when he would say, 'Meeting the Holy Father does something to you,'" Fr. Caron remembered.
When on the Island, Russert would often use his limited vacation time to help out Island charities. "He was always doing something to help someone out," Fr. Caron recalled. "He would be emcee for the Boston Pops performance to raise money for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. He would be the auctioneer for the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club fundraiser. He would help us out with a house tour fundraiser for the parish. And when we were raising funds to renovate our Church, he and Maureen were very generous." Russert was accustomed to say, "The greatest exercise of the human heart was to bend down and pick someone up."
When he wasn't inclining to help someone in need, the priest mentioned, he would often be sitting on a bench on Main Street reading the newspaper and talking to whoever sat down next to him. Fr. Caron happily admitted that he, personally, was among those who took advantage of the empty seat.
Fr. Caron added that Russert's solid foundation in his faith served him very well in the rough and tumble world of DC politics. "He could get along with everyone in Washington, but he really wasn't one of them. He never forgot where he came from."
Tim Russert never forgot where his true home was, either in this world or in the next. As the host of Meet the Press meets God for a face-to-face interview, we pray that the author of Wisdom of our Fathers may come to know even more intimately the wisest and most loving Father of all.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
