By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-10 02:36:22 | Updated at 2025-01-10 08:55:00
6 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Presidents, family members, friends, and others honored the life of President Jimmy Carter — who passed away at age 100 in December 2024 — at a Jan. 9 memorial service held in the Episcopalian Washington National Cathedral.
All five living U.S. presidents attended the funeral. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden sat in a row ahead of President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania; President Barack Obama whose wife, Michelle, did not attend the funeral; former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura; and former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff sat beside the Bidens. Former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, also attended.
Before Carter’s casket was processed in, the choir sang Stephen Paulus’ “The Road Home.” The songs “Amazing Grace” and “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” were also played during the service, in between several eulogies.
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang John Lennon’s pro-atheism song “Imagine” before the final prayers of the service. According to Savannah Morning News, Carter previously requested the song for his funeral.
Among those who spoke at the funeral were Carter’s grandsons Joshua and Jason, President Joe Biden, former U.S. Ambassador Rev. Andrew Young, and former United States Ambassador to the European Union Stuart Eizenstat.
Joshua spoke about how his grandfather taught about Scripture every week for decades – “from World War II to COVID.”
“Many of the people that my grandparents helped lived on less than one dollar a day. My grandfather spent the entire time I’ve known him helping those in need,” he said. “He built houses for people who needed homes. He eliminated diseases in forgotten places. He waged peace anywhere in the world, wherever he saw a chance. He loved people. And whenever he told these stories in Sunday school, he always said he did it for one simple reason: He worshiped the Prince of Peace, and He commanded it.”
Carter was an evangelical Baptist Christian. Some positions he favored conflicted with Christian teaching, as CatholicVote previously reported. He was in favor of same-sex “marriage” and legalized abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Speaking about abortion in 2015, he described it as “the only conflict I’ve had in my career between political duties and Christian faith.”
Eizenstat recounts Carter’s record in White House
Eizenstat, who also praised Carter’s faith and integrity, noted that Carter was the first president to light a Hanukkah menorah. Eizenstat also said Carter was “among the most consequential one-term presidents in American history.”
>> CatholicVote covers record of former President Jimmy Carter <<
Eizenstat recounted that Carter established the Carter Foundation, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Department of Education, during his presidency.
“He uniquely combined the soft power of human rights, championing freedom for the Communist east block countries, and tripling the immigration of Soviet Jews. He combined that with hard power, rebuilding America’s military strength after its post-Watergate decline,” Eizenstat said. “He negotiated a major nuclear arms treaty with the Soviets, while at the same time, initiated every single weapon system that came online in the 1980s.”
Jason Carter: Carter and wife Rosalynn ‘were regular folks’
Jason Carter’s eulogy shared about his grandfather’s faith and his personal relationship with him. He said that Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, “were regular folks.”
“Yes, they spent four years in the governor’s mansion and four years at the White House. But the other 92 years,” he said, “they spent at home in Plains, Georgia. And one of the best ways to demonstrate that they were regular folks is to take them by that home.”
Jason and others speaking at the memorial service noted Carter’s environmental work, with Jason describing him as “a climate warrior who pushed for a world where we conserved energy, limited emissions, and traded our reliance on fossil fuels for expanded renewable sources.”
He also praised his grandfather for being the same person in public and private.
“Maybe this is unbelievable to you, but in my 49 years, I never perceived a difference between his public face and his private one,” Jason said. “He was the same person, no matter who he was with or where he was. And for me, that’s the definition of integrity.”
Son of President Gerald Ford reads father’s eulogy to Carter
Also at the funeral was the son of former President Gerald Ford, Steven Ford, who read a tribute written by his father, a longtime friend of Carter’s.
At Gerald Ford’s request, Carter had given a eulogy for Gerald Ford at his funeral in 2007. Carter said in this eulogy that the two “frequently agreed that one of the greatest blessings that we had, after we left the White House during the last quarter-century was the intense personal friendship that bound us together.”
The eulogy read at Carter’s funeral by Ford’s son reflected this friendship as well, and included praises of Carter’s integrity.
“Honesty and truth telling were synonymous with the name Jimmy Carter,” Gerald’s eulogy for Carter said, explaining that Carter’s parents cultivated these values in Carter.
“He displayed that honesty throughout his life as a naval officer, state legislator, governor, president and world leader,” the eulogy said. “For Jimmy Carter, honesty was not the aspirational goal, it was part of his very soul.”
Biden: Carter’s friendship taught ‘everyone should be treated with dignity, respect’
Biden’s eulogy, which noted his own friendship with Carter, also repeatedly praised Carter for his character.
“Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me, and through his life taught me, a strength of character is more than title or the power we hold,” Biden said. “It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect, that everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves an even shot, not a guarantee, which is a shot.”
“We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor. And to stand up, to [what] my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power,” he continued.
Biden reflected on how Carter was a man who “showed us what it means to be practitioner of good works, a good and faithful servant of God and of the people.”
“Today, many think he was from a bygone era. But in reality, he saw well into the future,” Biden said. “A white Southern Baptist who led civil rights. A decorated Navy veteran who brokered peace. A brilliant nuclear engineer who led a nuclear nonproliferation. A hardworking farmer who championed conservation and clean energy. The president who redefined the relationship with the vice president. Jimmy and I often talked about our dear friend Walter Mondale, [whom] we all miss very much. Together they formed a model partnership, collaboration and trust. Both were men of character.”
Son of former VP Walter Mondale reads father’s eulogy for Carter
Carter’s former Vice President Walter Mondale, who passed away in 2021, had written a eulogy that Mondale’s son Ted read at the service.
Walter Mondale, who grew up Methodist, praised Carter as a devout Christian and explained that the two found it easier to understand each other having shared Christian faith. Mondale commended Carter for his work to conserve energy and pursue alternatives to fossil fuels, and for his work related to civil rights and human rights.
At the end of his eulogy, Mondale explained that Carter and he once tried to summarize, in one sentence, their work in the White House. Mondale said their summary was: “We told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace.”
“That we did, Mr. President,” Mondale said. “I will always be proud and grateful to have had the chance to work with you toward these noble ends. It was then and always will be the most rewarding experience of my public career.”
Rev. Andrew Young praises Carter’s inclusivity
Former U.S. Ambassador Rev. Andrew Young also spoke, praising Carter for his inclusivity and compassion towards others.
“He went out of his way to embrace those of us who had grown up in all kinds of conflicts,” Young said. “But that was the sensitivity, the spirituality, that made James Earl Carter a truly great president. James Earl Carter was truly a child of God.”
The service also included a reading from the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus gave the beatitudes in His sermon on the mount (Matthew 5:1-16).
The congregation prayed the Lord’s prayer, and Rev. Anthony Lowden led prayers of petition. The service closed with the hymn, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!” as the casket bearing Carter, who will ultimately be laid to rest in Georgia, was carried out.
