Diiulio Ends 'Mission' Blessed, Frustrated

August 19, 2001 Washington--Less than two weeks before the House vote on President Bush's controversial faith-based initiative, John J. DiIulio Jr. collapsed in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station on his way to catch his customary 4:05 a.m. train to Washington.

After six months on the job as the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the 43-year-old was worn down from a feverish pace of persuading Congress to pass the president's plan giving religious groups greater access to federal money to help the poor.

He was tired of the unrelenting attacks from the left, right and center. He was tired of being away from his wife and three children.

A few days later, DiIulio confided to a top aide, David Kuo, that he was worried about his health.

Even before the president personally asked him to launch his signature initiative in January, DiIulio's doctors had advised him not to teach that spring at the University of Pennsylvania. He should take time off to lose 60 to 100 pounds, they said, and reduce stress.

But DiIulio, described by one friend as ''Newman (of television's 'Seinfeld') with a 250 IQ, a longshoreman's personality and the heart of Mother Teresa,'' could not refuse the president.

After talking with Kuo about his health, the aide called John Bridgeland, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and told him to come over to DiIulio's office in the Old Executive Office Building right away. The three men barricaded themselves in DiIulio's living-room-sized office. No phone calls. No beepers. No interruptions.

For the next two hours they discussed DiIulio's dilemma: Should he go home or should he serve the president and risk his life?

Even though DiIulio is a lifelong Democrat, he and the president share a common belief that the most effective defense against poverty is instilling faith in people that they can change their lives.

To DiIulio, whose father never went past eighth grade and whose mother sold dinettes at a department store, working closely with the president was a measure of how far a kid from South Philly could go in the United States.

''It was an out-of-body experience,'' he said. ''I don't know why I have been so blessed.''

The three men had tears in their eyes as they talked about the options, what his departure would mean to the faith-based initiative and how to create a smooth transition.

''I told him that his health and his family have to be his priorities,'' Bridgeland said. ''But for his health, I would be doing everything that is humanly possible to get him to stay because he embodies everything that the issue is about --- compassion.''

The difficult part was that DiIulio felt that by running the faith-based office he was following the mission that God wanted him to follow.

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