I thought to watch the Kennedy funeral was too severe a penance to inflict upon myself. Ed Peters though managed it and has some comments about it. At the end he says:
The whole experience left me less hopeful about “dialogue” on life issues (not that I was very hopeful to begin with): we are, it seems clear, talking to people who have no sense of the enormity of the crimes being committed daily against the innocent. None. None.
This matches exactly my own feeling on this. That what abortion means seems to be totally lost on so many in the Church. Even among those that call themselves pro-life they have lost the horror of the murder of the unborn. It seems like the support of abortion has become to them like some unpopular zoning ordinance. Disagreeable, but don’t make too much noise about it. Don’t mention the fact that the deceased supporting sucking the brains out of a child just before being born – talking about this is bad taste, but I guess not voting for this.
Looking at what Ed Peters wrote on the funeral it is just sad that the Church is used in such a way as to promote someone who was a leader in the Culture of Death and who planned and orchestrated how to keep the Supreme Court nice and favorable to abortion. Also very sad that the only person to offer a prayer for the Senator was the President (how does that figure in his Protestantism?).
It also becomes a mockery of the Mass when the intercessions become “Intercessory Talking Points” such as praying for national health care (Oh Lord Deliver us from this). It is also quite evident that the people who talked about the Senator were irony deficient in their praise.
The purpose of a funeral Mass seems to me to pray for the departed, not ask for their intercessions. So instead we have scandal instead of asking for prayers for the late Senator. Just too bad we can’t stick to the GIRM.
From the Catholic Action League
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today decried the scandal which occurred this morning at Boston’s most historic Catholic shrine — the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, known as Mission Church — where a Mass of Christian Burial was used to “celebrate the life” of one of America’s most notorious opponents of Catholic morality, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Senator Kennedy fought for more than three decades to keep the killing of pre-born children legal and unrestricted in the United States.
Surgical abortion has claimed more than fifty-one million human lives since 1973. The Catholic religion defines abortion as an “abominable crime”.
President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy, in which he alluded to Kennedy’s support for gay rights. One of the Prayers of the Faithful was a petition to end divisions “between gays and straights”.
Ecclesial participants included Rev. Raymond Collins, Rector of the Basilica; Rev. Mark Hession, Kennedy’s parish priest from Our Lady of Victories Church in Centerville on Cape Cod; Rev. J. Donald Monan, Chancellor of Boston College; and Sean Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, who thanked President Obama for his words and his presence. Both the homilist, Fr. Hession, and Cardinal O’Malley suggested that the late senator had found eternal salvation.
The Catholic Action League called the event “a tragic example of the Church’s willingness to surrender to the culture, and serve Caesar rather than Christ”.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “Senator Kennedy supported legal abortion, partial-birth abortion, the public funding of Medicaid abortions, embryonic stem cell research, birth control, federal family planning programs, and so-called emergency contraception. He defended Roe v. Wade, endorsed the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), and opposed both the Human Life Amendment and the Hyde Amendment. Kennedy maintained a 100% rating from both NARAL and Planned Parenthood. In 1993, he received the Kenneth Edelin Award from Planned Parenthood, and in 2000 received the Champions of Choice Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts at the hands of the same Dr. Kenneth Edelin, the infamous abortionist.”
During his 1994 reelection campaign, Kennedy said ‘I wear as a badge of honor my opposition to the anti-choicers’. His successful obstruction of the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 effectively prevented the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Beyond his specific positions on human life issues, Senator Kennedy, along with the late Congressman Robert Drinan, provided the cover and the example for two generations of Catholic politicians to defect from Church teaching on the sanctity of innocent human life.”
“No rational person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion when a champion of the Culture of Death, who repeatedly betrayed the Faith of his baptism, is lauded and extolled by priests and prelates in a Marian basilica. This morning’s spectacle is evidence of the corruption which pervades the Catholic Church in the United States. The right to life will never be recognized by secular society if it is not first vindicated and consistently upheld within the institutions of the Church itself.”
20 comments
Dear Jeff, Thank you for your insightful comments/analysis. It is so sad that the ongoing scandals are becoming of such enormity that it is hard to tell the Catholic Church in America from the “party of death” or the Government . . .
Catholics are being left more and more confused. Look forward to seeing Mr. Peter’s commentary – did my penance and listened/watched the funeral. I feel for the family, but am admittedly overwhelming saddened for the Church – you know – the Gospel and the Fullness of the teaching handed down to us from the Apostles.
I really can not fathom what is going on…and it seems at an ever rapidly increasing pace things are “going down.”
Mercy.
I can understand why you who believe otherwise, see Teddy as an evil spectre. The fact is though, that a majority of Catholics voted for him, as well as other citizens of his State. He may not have represented the feelings of the Holy See but it’s clear that his constituency was enthusiastic about his representation, on all of the major issues which he championed, over the many years of his tenure.
The laity don’t get to vote on who attains the priesthood or who rises to leadership within its ranks. They got to vote for Teddy though, every six years and they did. I don’t think he got a free pass in Congress for half a century, considering his personal shortcomings during most of it, just because his brothers got shot. Do You? I think he got elected over and over again because they thought he did a good job. The majority of Catholics do not agree with the hierarchy of religious within the Catholic Church on many important aspects of the faith. There is nothing they can do about it and they won’t leave the Church because it is their culture and they feel ownership. You can argue whether this is right or wrong but not that it isn’t true.
Teddy is dead. God has judged him. Nothing will change that. The fact that you presume to know what that judgement was, is surprising.
The fact that you presume to know what that judgement was, is surprising.
No one has said that. Don’t tell lies.
Kudos to Catholic Action League.
Good points above, too.
We clearly have evidence that the majority of MA people support mortal sin in various iterations and many forms. It’s all still mortal sin.
Sadly, I need to travel there all too often. The evil is palpable, especially at Fenway. Go Yankees!
The so-called poor are convinced (by demagogues dem pols) they are victims of the the evil rich, a.k.a., hard working productive population and white people. So, they vote for glib demagogues promising to take from productive people and give them bread, circuses, and rationed hell care. They vote for the oen that promuises to take goods and services from producers and give to them.
The demagogues are supported 24/7 by the lying, liberal MSM and the socialist justice professionals infesting the subverted Church.
In short, the liberals, in the dem party and catholic church, get power by engendering class and race envy and hatred.
I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead. We can harm them no more, nor can we undue the evils they have done, which horridly live on after their demise. The dead have gone before an Almighty, and Infinitiely Just and Merciful Judge. Many of the judgments of this world are reversed by The Lord.
I will say, Teddy raised the bar on moral terpitude. And, he is a good liberal . . . since Tuesday night.
The majority of Germans voted for Adolf Hitler, too.
My brother-in-law gave a eulogy at a family Catholic funeral just last month. I seem to be the only person who knew there wasn’t supposed to be one. I don’t know if it was the family’s idea or if it was invited by the parish, which was not the parish where this family member grew up and which was bemusing in many ways.
Dear Gail F,
Forgive my ignorance.
Your response suggests that there is not supposed to be a eulogy at a funeral. Could you explain?
G-Veg
G-Veg
The GIRM Says:
382. At the Funeral Mass there should, as a rule, be a short homily, but never a eulogy of any kind.
385. …Pastors should, moreover, take into special account those who are present at a liturgical celebration or who hear the Gospel on the occasion of the funeral and who may be non-Catholics or Catholics who never or rarely participate in the Eucharist or who seem even to have lost the faith. For priests are ministers of Christ’s Gospel for all.
David,
The fact is neither I or any of the commenter on my blog have in fact judged what his judgment was. I don’t see how asking people to pray for his soul is bad. If we presumed that he was in Hell there would be no point to the prayers. We pray that in God’s wide mercy he will enter Heaven after being in Purgatory.
But we can certainly judge his earthly actions since he supported intrinsic evil. As for what the majority of Catholic think I don’t much care since it is the truth I am concerned about. The majority of Catholics during the Arian heresy had a totally wrong view of Jesus. Truth is not a democracy.
KENNEDY’S FREE PASS WITH WOMEN
WHY DID SO MANY DISMISS HIS CRIMES?
By MAUREEN CALLAHAN
August 30, 2009 NYPost
In all the obits published and specials aired this week,
Chappaquiddick gets a few paragraphs, a few minutes, a tidy recapping
of the events of July 19, 1969: The married Ted Kennedy, driving late
at night with young campaign aide Mary Jo Kopechne, pitches off a
bridge and into the water below. He escapes; she drowns. He does not
report the accident for 10 hours. He pleads guilty and gets a
suspended sentence, two months in jail.
In most of these narratives, Chappaquiddick is told as Ted’s tragedy,
the thing that kept him from ever becoming president. And in these
narratives, he is chastened, goes on to make amends through a life of
public service, advocating for the disadvantaged and the downtrodden
— and, especially, women. No one’s perfect, right?
But how is it that so many women unabashedly revere Kennedy today? The
particulars of Chappaquiddick are especially gory; his behavior after
the accident approaches the amoral. Once he broke free and swam to the
surface, Kennedy said that he dove back down seven or eight times to
rescue Kopechne. Failing, he swam back to shore and checked back into
his hotel, and a short time later lodged a noise complaint with the
desk clerk. The people in the room next to his were partying and it
was interfering with his sleep. Then he asked the desk clerk for the
time.
According to the Aug. 4, 1969 edition of Newsweek, that clerk, Russell
E. Peachey, told Kennedy it was 2:25 a.m., then asked, “Is there
anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you,” Kennedy replied.
*
In 1990, GQ magazine ran a devastating profile of Kennedy. Two
16-year-old girls near the Capitol startled by a limo rolling up, the
door opening, Ted sitting in the back with a bottle of wine, asking
one, then the other, to join. A former aide who acted as Ted’s “pimp.”
His penchant for dating women so young that one did not know he was
the subject of many books. Kennedy, at a swank DC restaurant with his
drinking buddy Chris Dodd, throwing a petite waitress on his dinner
table with such force that glass and flatware shatters and goes
flying. Then Ted throws her on to Dodd’s lap and grinds against her.
He is interrupted by other waitstaff. He is later caught in the same
restaurant, in a semi-private area, having sex on the floor with a
lobbyist.
In 1991, Kennedy’s nephew William Kennedy Smith is charged with rape.
Kennedy Smith had been out drinking with Ted and Ted’s son Patrick at
Au Bar in Palm Beach. Kennedy Smith is eventually acquitted, and it’s
never proved that Ted had any knowledge of what happened on the
Kennedy grounds that night. He remarried, in 1992, and very publicly
domesticated himself.
But the tawdriness — the ostensible elder statesmen getting s – –
t-faced and picking up women with his son and his nephew; the
acquittal won, in part, by shredding the accuser on the stand and in
the press; privilege winning out, always — is in such stark contrast
to Kennedy’s politics that you have to wonder: Is this really what
Kennedy thought of women?
*
Most feminists don’t think Ted Kennedy was a misogynist. Upon news of
his death, NOW, Emily’s List and Planned Parenthood all released
emotional, laudatory statements. It’s true that Kennedy’s legislative
record deserves such a response. And he was quiet enough in the last
15 years of his life that it’s not hard to minimize his past behavior
if you want to.
Or if you’re unaware — Google reported that “Chappaquiddick” and
“Mary Jo Kopechne” were the top searches Wednesday and Thursday.
“I didn’t know about Chappaquiddick and the rape case until
yesterday,” says Miriam Perez, a 25-year-old editor at
Feministing.com. She admires Kennedy’s accomplishments, but is
perplexed. “Like every person, he’s human and there are lots of flaws
involved,” she says. “But a big feminist tenet is: The personal is
political. So I don’t feel it’s fair to fully ignore it in this case.”
Perhaps, along with the hagiographic Kennedy myth, we can bury this
outdated tradition of excusing the reprehensible treatment of women by
the same male legislators who otherwise advocate for our rights
politically. It’s degrading. It’s like making excuses for the husband
who beats you up but pays the bills on time. It may be 2009, but the
bulk of the talking heads who covered this funeral were older white
males, and among the few women — eminent historian Doris Kearns
Goodwin among them — it’s still shocking to hear them, nearly to a
one, reduce Kennedy’s bad behavior to rakish abandon or poor
judgement. Why shouldn’t we hold our elected male officials —
especially those who so assiduously court the female vote — to a
standard of personal decency in their treatment of women? Why do we
still assume that this is an either/or proposition?
“It’s a great question,” says Gloria Feldt, former president of the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Feldt worked with Kennedy
and is an admirer, still. “He worked with women’s groups in a very
respectful way, in a way that few other senators do,” she says. “But I
don’t know that you can reconcile it — when it’s in a group’s best
interest that said person stays in that chair, how do you weigh that
moral equation? I wish it were simpler than that.”
In addition to all the comments about the funeral, I am really perplexed by the Pope’s Apostolic Blessing just before they put the Senator in the ground (and following a plea in the senator’s letter to the Pope for universal health care, of all things – is there no shame anywhere?)
A Spanish saying goes: After a convention of mice, was accorded to put a sounding device (cascabel)on the cat. The question remained:
Who is going to do it?
While there is no organized USA lay movement asking Rome to purge the USCCB, as a foreigner, I tell: honest USA Catholics will keep chasing an elusive tail.
Read my comment in “American” Papist, on bishop Martino, guilty of not excomunicating VP Biden:
What exactly was his duty, when the VP of the most powerful country on earth (world-wide scandal to one billion Catholic, 4 % in USA), keeps crowing the Obama-abortion-genocide policy?
Canon Law, commands three steps: 1) Privately ask to recant. 2) Publicly do so. 3) Excommunicate.
Point: in the USCCB NO bishop has EXCOMMUNICATED a single “abortion Catholic Law maker”, and… an electrician involved in surgical abortion is automatically done. What is your common sense indictment to the USCCB?
If this bishop is “firebrand” for the likes of Mr. Thomas Peters we are done. RIP.
“The majority of Catholics do not agree with the hierarchy of religious within the Catholic Church on many important aspects of the faith. There is nothing they can do about it and they won’t leave the Church because it is their culture and they feel ownership.”
You are wrong there, Mr. Wickert: they have already left the Church by casting its teachings aside and embracing the world. They are the equivalent of secular Jews. And the Kingdom of God is not a democracy, nor should the Church militant ever be. “The majority of Catholics…” have probably already received their just reward, because that is what they aspire to.
Teddy Kennedy belonged to this world in life; in death, he probably still belongs to it. Whatever God’s judgment might be, we have every right to point to what appears likely when we compare the late senator’s works with what Our Lord had to say about one’s works in general. It is not at all presumptuous to say that it doesn’t look good for his soul any more than it is wrong to point out that God is merciful, but also just.
Judgment of one’s soul is indeed God’s alone. But judgment of character and behavior and worldly consequences is obligatory for every intelligent, loving person. Enough has been said on that subject with regard to the late senator.
Is it time for our Bishops to start actually leading us? Are they afraid of losing “the majority of Catholics” due to doctrinal or financial (tax-exempt status) issues? The Church is being taken over by wolves and our Bishops are out looking for the lost lamb.
The lost lamb can wait. Let’s get rid of the wolves first.
Had the late Senator Kennedy been from a different state and been a proponent of, say, racial segregation, there would have been no question that what he had stood for was contrary to the Christian faith, apart from any alleged judgment on his soul after his death.
To conflation of the two is to create a red herring.
Senator Kennedy very publicly stood for and fought for the intentional killing of infants in the womb. As would supporting segregation, that makes him a public enemy of the Catholic Church.
Maybe there could have had a quiet family-only, private funeral at Our Lady of Victory church in Centerville. And if President Obama and others had wanted to eulogize the late Senator, they could have done so at, oh, say, the NARAL headquarters auditorium in Washington, DC. That Church officials chose to pay public homage to an enemy of the Church, I think, is rather pathetic.
“Fr. Hession, and Cardinal O’Malley suggested that the late senator had found eternal salvation.” i hope they know something that they can’t share — meaning last confession. From what I read of the late senator’s letter to the pope, the two word “I’m sorry” seemed to me missing.I missed seeing all of it. Now , back to the prayers.
Jeff said “Also very sad that the only person to offer a prayer for the Senator was the President (how does that figure in his Protestantism?).”
My personal opinion only, of course … but, see, this just shows you that the president’s so-called faith is just a thin cultural lip-service veneer. Only if this is so could a man sit through 20 years of the Rev. Wrong’s sermons and not understand the racism preached in them. Only if this is so could he have the gall to lecture a large group of organized religious leaders about bearing false witness when in fact he was doing that exact thing at that exact moment. It’s all just a persona, another outfit he throws on at need. Michelle has those dorky sweaters; he has a dorky faith thing. Same kinda idea.
I betcha dollars to Krispy Kremes that, if you asked, he couldn’t tell you the difference between praying for a person’s soul and praying for a living person’s needs. Just an outfit that seemed to suit the occasion.
About the voters in Massachusetts: I’ve lived in Massachusetts since 1976 when I entered the convent, except for 6 years in other assignments.
I have never, ever voted for Kennedy. But unfortunately, the people of Massachusetts in general are absolutely in love with the Kennedys, even Catholics. Besides that, most of them automatically vote Democratic. Many don’t even know anything about who is running or what they stand for. They just vote Democratic. It’s a herd instinct and I can’t explain it. Their votes didn’t mean that Kennedy was doing a good job. It just meant that they’ll vote for anybody who’s on the Democratic ticket, no matter what.
Amid the slew of Obama bumper stickers I see all over the road, I wish I had one that says:
“Favor diversity. Vote non-Democratic.”
If you want to have some Jester humor, on the “humor” prize winner blog this year, the “American” Papist: they erased my (above quoted) comment & point!!!
“In the USCCB NO bishop has EXCOMMUNICATED a single “abortion Catholic Law maker”, and… an electrician involved in surgical abortion is automatically done. What is your common sense indictment to the USCCB?
Peters has surgically removed his prized humor?
Joe: If your quote: “Fr. Hession, and Cardinal O’Malley suggested that the late senator had found eternal salvation.” I hope they know something that they can’t share — meaning last confession…”, is accurate, well, lets round up some confessions for the PURGE!
You don’t get invited to many parties, do you Guillermo?
Andy:
Coming from a prominent family in my country, I do get many invites, but I make a point on NOT going to the ones where scandal makers as purple cardinals like O’Malley, or McCarrick, are going to PRAISE THE LEGACY (abortion leadership?), of the ones who Crucify Jesus again.
Cordially
This is the comment I put on Cardinal O’Malley’s blog (it hasn’t been posted there yet):
Dear Cardinal O’Malley,
I have been pondering Pope Benedict’s words in his new encyclical “Charity in Truth”:
“To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.”
To speak the truth is an indispensable form of charity, especially when that truth is unpopular. Our society does not want to hear that the unborn child must not be killed.
Despite whatever good he did, Senator Kennedy spent the better part of his long political career actively working for legislation that would favor abortion. That is not a judgment; it is part of the public record. He even voted in favor of partial-birth abortion, a horrendous procedure in which the baby’s brains are sucked out.
He did immense damage to the pro-life movement. Is that of any consequence in the eyes of the bishops?
While we pray in charity for his soul, it is indeed a deep scandal for the Church to imply that his record on abortion is of no consequence. I realize you were in a difficult position, but I am deeply disappointed that the overall impression given by the funeral was that it doesn’t really matter if a Catholic politician ardently supports abortion.
Who is speaking up for the millions of innocents who have been slaughtered and continue to die every day?
While Ted Kennedy had a magnificent funeral, these innocent children are thrown into dumpsters. And no one weeps.