The following is a transcript and video of Senator Chris Murphy’s remarks about Monsignor Robert Weiss on the Senate floor.
My colleagues, I come to the floor today to celebrate a remarkable man, a really important friend of mine, an irreplaceable member of a community that is very important to me. Monsignor Robert Weiss, more affectionately known as Father Bob, retired last month from his post at at St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown, Connecticut. A Florida native, Father Bob was just a teenager when he heard his calling to join the priesthood. In 1968, he entered St.
Bernard Seminary in Rochester, New York. He was ordained five years later. His first assignment led him to St. Andrew Parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and 26 years later, he was assigned to St. Rose in Newtown, Connecticut.
What became his last job in the church? Father Bob gave his final sermon just weeks ago. I’m going to tell you the story in a moment of why Father Bob is a household name in Connecticut. He’s a hero to many of us, forged by fire and tragedy. But that’s not the sum of Robert Weiss, because during his 50 years in the priesthood, he has brought such great joy to the people and the families that he has served.
He is such an easy person to talk to. You just meet him for the first time and you see why. It’s no wonder that over his years of leadership, thousands and thousands of parishioners have sought out his counsel and his advice, confided with him, relied upon him. He has this wonderful smile, a buoyancy to him. He’ll admit that a little bit of that has been robbed from him in the last ten years, but it does just make you feel better just by being around him.
He’s also wise. He has a gravitas about him that he carries with him. It just makes you feel safer, makes you feel cared for when you’re around him. He cares about his church community. He helped grow St. Rose, but he cares about the community beyond the church. Just as heartily, he reaches out and builds bridges between religious institutions, between church and state, between believers and non believers. He isn’t judgmental. He’s a consensus and community builder. He’s an exceptional leader.
That’s who he was before December 14, 2012. That’s who he’s been after December 14, 2012. But that’s the day, whether he likes it or not, that defines his career. It started out like any other day for Father Bob. He went to his favorite diner in Sandy Hook.
He ordered his usual french toast. He was going to spend the morning wrapping Christmas presents. He didn’t have a mass that day. And then he got a call from the Newtown Police Department. A gunman had opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
He told the administrators at St. Rose School, the church affiliated with the school affiliated with his church, to put students in lockdown. And then he drove to Sandy Hook. He stopped at the firehouse where parents and teachers and kids were waiting. He went to the parking lot of the school.
A state police officer on the scene asked him if you would bless the children, the 20 bodies that lay on the floor of that school and the six educators who laid on the floor as well, all waiting to be identified. And so he stood at the front door of that building knowing that those children of those educators were no longer living on this earth. And he prayed for them. And then he went back to the firehouse, where he stayed for the rest of the day and held the hands of these parents as they waited to find out whether their child was in that school dead or somewhere alive. He had officiated the weddings of these parents.
He had baptized these children. These parents had confessed their regrets and their fears to him.
By 03:00 p.m. Governor Malloy had alerted the families that remained at that firehouse about the fate of their children. But Father Bob’s day wasn’t done. He led an impromptu service at St. Rose that evening.
Senator Blumenthal and I were there. It is maybe the most emotional night of my life with Father Bob, with no time to prepare, stood up in front of thousands who had come to grieve that tragedy at his church because that’s where so many of the families belonged. And he told the crowd that evil visited us today, but we have to get through it, and we have to find some good. Even after the service, Father Bob didn’t stop from there. He joined the state police until one or 02:00 a.m.
In the morning so that he could be there when the final body identifications were made and he could be there with the parents when they were given that final, awful, tragic news. The following week, Father Bob officiated eight of the 26 funerals. They were all students at St. Rose’s religious education program. He wrote eight homilies.
He picked three lessons from each of their short lives that the community could learn from. It is hard for me to explain to you what Father Bob meant to that community in those days, in those weeks and months after. In many ways, he was the emotional sponge for that entire community, not just for his parishioners. He was so unbelievably generous with himself, with his time and with his heart in one on one time with those that were grieving in big groups who needed to hear some spiritual guidance, who needed one of the preeminent religious leaders in the community to make sense of what happened. And on television, where Father Bob would speak for the community, relieving that burden from so many others who weren’t yet ready to process and talk about what all of this meant, he did it all, the one on one handholding, the group counseling, the spokesman for the community.
The Catholic Church requires bishops retire upon their 75th birthday. But when Father Bob’s 75th birthday was around the corner in September of 2021, he realized he wasn’t ready to be done. In his resignation letter, he requested a very rare extension to stay on at St. Rose of Lima for two more years because he wanted to mark the 10th anniversary of Sandy Hook. He wanted to see through that journey the first decade after this tragedy that had ripped a hole in the heart of the community that he loved so much.
I remember talking to Father Bob at that moment when he decided to stay on. He acknowledged what he had gone through, how much pain he had experienced, how different he was from the man that took that job. But he still knew that he had to see that finish line at least the first decade after the tragedy. Father Bob may have celebrated his final mass as pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church, but he will remain a pillar of this community.
We will never, ever forget how in the days, weeks and years after that tragedy in Sandy Hook, he led with his heart on his sleeve. He helped heal a broken community. More than anyone else, he bore the burden separate. And aside from the families who bore the majority of that burden, Father Bob’s career would have been remarkable even if December 14, 2012 never happened. But what he did that day, what he did in the days and the weeks and the years that follow, that makes him a legend.
I yield the floor.
