I was the first person in my family ever to be invited to the White House. So I’m going through these major struggles and tensions. “God, what do I do?” Here I am invited, and at the same time I got a bag of ashes in my pants, and I’m going to try to say something to the president.
We went into the basement of the White House, which is no basement at all. It’s a major mansion. And my God Everything in there was an original. One room had all these gold plates. When Reagan came into office, I remember Nancy says they needed a new China set cause theirs had been eaten off of. I’m like, “Hell! You’ve got all these gold plates right in your basement! They’re not rented. Take them!”
Finally, they asked us to come upstairs, and I tried to jockey myself to make sure I got a good seat. I took third row center aisle, maybe fifteen feet away from the president’s podium.
I’m very nervous, of course, ‘cause I know what I’m going to do. And I’m sitting there and looking around and in comes Bishop Thomas Gumbleton. The only bishop in the country who wrote against the treaty not because it gave the Russians too much but because it allowed for the development and employment of first-strike nuclear weapons. When I saw him, I just felt such confirmation. But I’m just so nervous, so I get up and go see the bishop. Tap him on the shoulder. I lean over real close to him and I say, “Bishop, would you say a prayer for me?”
“Why, yes, I will.” The poor bishop. He looks at me like, “Why is this crazy man bothering me?”
From:
Frank Cordaro's Writings and Archives 