I just saw this thread, but want to say that your problem is that you were not his priest, and impenitent Ted even wrote to the pope and who wrote back, thanking him for his prayers and without any known word of censure. And as,
"the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock... the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors." - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906:
then you are to do what RCs tell us to do, that of looking to Roman leadership for what the truth, which Scripture teaches it manifest by what one does. (Ja. 2:18) And which overall count and treat even prosodomy proabortion public figures as members in life and in death.
Those (such as SSPX types) who interpret what the church teaches differently than they do are somewhat akin to Protestants in principal.
The Pope wasn’t hearing Ted’s confession and wasn’t called upon to give or deny Ted absolution. Ted wrote the Pope a letter for no discernible reason, and the Pope wrote back an inoffensive letter. Which was then read over the grave by Cardinal McCarrick as though it carried some sort of meaning.
Kennedy died pro-abortion, with no sign of repentance.
Kennedy wrote to the Pope in a last desperate bid to get approval for his decades-long shameful career of screaming for the blood of babies. I’m sure the Pope didn’t want to seem harsh to a dying man. He said he would pray that Kennedy would receive the grace of complete surrender to the will of God. Taken seriously, that would entail public repentance.
Cardinal McCarrick read the Pope’s letter at the graveside as though it constituted some sort of Papal approbation for Kennedy.
We need a sea-change in the hierarchy. It’s long past time they were more concerned about the babies being butchered than the delicate feelings of Kennedys and Cuomos, Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, etc., etc.
Three hundred years from now, the hierarchy will be apologizing for JPII, Benedict, Francis, Wuerl, O’Malley, Dolan, Gomez, et al., for their passivity in the face of the pro-aborts.