By NCR Staff

WASHINGTON -- Fr. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit who became the first Roman Catholic priest to serve as a voting member of Congress, died Sunday, Jan. 28, from pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He was 86.

An internationally known human rights advocate, Drinan represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives for 10 years in the 1970s, stepping down only after a worldwide directive from Pope John Paul II barring priests from holding public office.

In 1981, he began teaching at Georgetown University, his alma mater, where he remained until his death.

At the Georgetown Law School, he taught classes on international human rights, constitutional law, civil liberties, legislation and advanced legal ethics. At the time of his death, he was teaching a class on religion and government and an advanced legal ethics seminar, according to a statement from the university. He taught more than 6,000 students during his long career.

Drinan recently told the Legal Times that he had given no thought to retirement, saying there was too much left to do: "Jesuits don't ordinarily retire. You just do what you do."

Drinan was a longtime columnist for NCR. His last column, titled "U.N. pledge of equality for women deserves U.S. support," appears in the Feb. 2 issue of the paper.

In October, Georgetown established the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights for his half century of involvement in the cause. Drinan was a founder of the Lawyers' Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry. He was the vice chair of the National Advisory Council of the ACLU and a member of the Helsinki Watch Committee, a precursor to Human Rights Watch.

A remembrance can be found on the Georgetown University Web site: Georgetown Remembers Rev. Robert F. Drinan, S.J. [1]

An obituary by the Associated Press noted that when Drinan first ran for Congress, 30 percent of the voters in his district thought it was improper for a priest to run for office, but "Drinan considered politics a natural extension of his work in public affairs and human rights."

The obituary continues:

Father Drinan ran for Congress on a platform of opposition to the Vietnam War. During his Congressional tenure, he continued to dress in the robes of his clerical order and lived in a simple room in the Jesuit community at Georgetown. But Father Drinan wore his liberal views more prominently. He opposed the draft, worked to abolish mandatory retirement and raised eyebrows with his more moderate views on abortion and birth control
. And he became the first member of Congress to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon - although the call was not related to the Watergate scandal, but to what Father Drinan viewed as the administration's undeclared war against Cambodia.
Can we be silent about this flagrant violation of the Constitution?" Father Drinan asked. "Can we impeach a president for concealing a burglary but not for concealing a massive bombing?"

Watch this Web site for more coverage of Drinan's legacy and contributions to American society and the church.