- December 5th, 2006, 5:47 am
#45283
Kaine visits Liberty before making tough decision
By Blair Goldstein
bgoldstein@newsadvance.com
December 4, 2006
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Gov. Timothy M. Kaine sat next to the Rev. Jerry Falwell and prayed with Liberty University students Monday morning.
Kaine spoke about his Christian faith and guiding life lessons with students packed into the Vines Center for their convocation.
“Being governor you make very hard decisions,” he said. “I have a very hard decision I’m wrestling with today. I have hard decisions every day and the way you do this is to have a faith life that roots you in something.”
Kaine, a Democrat, has not shied away from discussing his Catholic faith.
During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, he told voters that as a Catholic he did not believe the death penalty was just, but as a governor of Virginia he would uphold state law.
Kaine said in an interview following the convocation that the decision he was referring to is whether to halt the execution of Percy Walton. Walton, who may be mentally ill, is sentenced to die Friday for the murder and robbery of three Danville residents in 1997.
Kaine said Monday afternoon that he would announce a decision within the next 24 hours.
The governor toured Liberty University following convocation. Kaine had visited Liberty during Boys State but this was his first official visit to the school itself.
“He married a Republican governor’s daughter, which is why he has done so well,” Falwell said. Kaine’s wife, Anne, is the daughter of former governor Linwood Holton.
Kaine told the students that he was raised in a devout Catholic family in Kansas City. He read from Chapter 53 of Isaiah, saying the passage about the promise of Jesus’ coming has stuck with him throughout his life.
But, Kaine said his most powerful faith experience came as a 22-year-old when he took a one-year break from Harvard Law School to work with missionaries in Honduras.
He said the missionaries brought to life the religious teachings of his childhood.
“They became the human inspirations of words that I had heard but that had stored themselves away,” he said. “They were like the water and the sunlight that caused them to grow.”
He told the story of his most memorable Christmas.
On Dec. 25, 1980, Kaine said he traveled to several remote villages in Honduras to help hold mass for the residents and to visit with families.
At one village, Kaine and a priest visited with a poor family, whose children were obviously malnourished. As they were leaving, the family gave the priest a gift of fresh food.
Kaine said his first reaction was to give the food back so the family could eat. Instead, the priest accepted the gift and taught Kaine what he called an important life lesson.
“He said, ‘Tim, you’ve got to be really humble to accept a gift of food from a family as poor as them,’” Kaine said.
He said that experience reminds him to be humble and to focus his life on service to others.
“You were helped yesterday by people, you were helped today by people, you will be helped tomorrow by people,” he said. “You stand in need of prayer. You stand in need of help.”
4:28:2009-RIP Jeff Taylor
PAmedic wrote:you're absolutely right
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