In The Northwest: Teresa Heinz Kerry hasn't lost her outspoken way (blasts Catholic Bishops)

Seattle Pi ^ | March 7, 2005 | Joel Connolly

[NYer]

What made Teresa Heinz Kerry so refreshing to some voters, and threatening to others on the 2004 campaign trail, is summed up when THK talks about her speech to last year's Democratic convention:

"Nobody told me what to do," she told a Saturday fund-raiser here.

The implicit afterword: Nobody better try.

The sails of the philanthropist wife of Sen. John Kerry were not trimmed by November's narrow electoral defeat.

The softly accented voice gives pointed advice to the Democratic Party, which she lately joined, formerly having spent 15 years as wife of a Senate Republican.

Heinz Kerry flew into town on her own Gulfstream jet (the Flying Squirrel, named for a Sun Valley ski run) direct from a conference on global philanthropy at Stanford.

She talked energy-efficient building design with Seattle Art Museum boss (and old friend) Mimi Gates. She dined at Wild Ginger and flew back east with takeout food from the Third Avenue restaurant.

At a lunch for Rep. Adam Smith, guests were treated to more spicy observations than will likely be heard at all fund-raisers under the Westin's roof from now to the 2008 presidential race. A sampling:

• THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: A practicing Catholic, as is her husband, Heinz Kerry remains outraged at attacks by bishops on her husband's pro-choice views.

"You cannot have bishops in the pulpit -- long before or the Sunday before the election -- as they did in Catholic churches, saying it was a mortal sin to vote for John Kerry," she said.

Heinz Kerry gave no examples. Last year, a few ultraconservative prelates said they would not allow the Democratic nominee to receive communion in their dioceses. The bishop of Colorado Springs declared that Catholics voting for pro-choice candidates were not welcome at the communion rail.

"The church has a right and obligation to teach values," Heinz Kerry declared. "They don't have a right to restrict freedom of expression, which they did."

• COUNTING THE VOTES: Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes.

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

"We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on "accountability and transparency" in how votes are tabulated.

"I fear for '06," she said. "I don't trust it the way it is right now."

• A SECOND KERRY RUN: Heinz Kerry won't stand in the way of a second presidential bid by her husband. She tersely summed up emotions at the end of November's long election night: "No tears, some sadness."

"I think we should focus on '06: If '06 doesn't work out, '08 will be impossible," she argued. "If it were right for John to do it -- and he felt right -- he would do it again (in 2008). If he didn't feel it right, he wouldn't."

Theresa Heinz Kerry campaigned tirelessly -- "When I put out, I put out" -- but seemed to scorn the political wife's expected role of fixing her husband in adoring upward gaze.

At Saturday's fund-raiser, she talked openly about conflicting emotions when confronted with her spouses' ambitions. Born in Mozambique of Portuguese parents, she was married to Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania. Heinz was killed in a 1991 air crash.

She inherited her husband's fortune, took charge of Heinz family endowments and married Kerry in 1995.

"I kept my first husband from running for office for four years," she explained. "Terrified" at the prospect of public life, as a non-native born American, Heinz Kerry adjusted to what she described as a life of "losses, diseases, hurt, disappointments and many joys."

She confessed to similar self-doubts when John Kerry launched his bid for the White House: "I'm too old. I can't handle it. I have too much to do."

A hike by herself in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho gave THK time to reach another conclusion: "I thought, 'There's no way I have a right to keep him from doing it'. "

She was always a hit in Seattle -- even while Deaniacs had John Kerry's campaign in the doldrums -- but ran into bumps on the campaign trail.

She responded to nasty questions by a columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a paper owned by right-wing mogul Richard Mellon Scaife, using words familiar to many Americans: "Shove it!"

The Drudge Report, a popular conservative Web site, missed no opportunity to run unflattering pictures of THK or float untruthful personal rumors about her husband.

A gossipy, superficial book on the 2004 campaign by the Washington, D.C., bureau of Newsweek depicted Heinz Kerry as a loose cannon requiring constant maintenance.

Heinz Kerry is still steamed at what the Republican attack machine did to her husband.

"Think about last year," she said. "Once John had his nomination, the Republicans spent $90 million to destroy his reputation."

She cited dirty tricks used in the campaign to mobilize what the religious right called "Values Voters."

"In West Virginia, John was going to burn Bibles," she said. "It's not 'values.' It's outright lies."

Often a vigorous overseer of grants, Heinz Kerry has taken a lesson from the concentrated incoming fire she received from the right flank.

"We have to develop a discipline for this party, so the people of this country know more clearly what it is to be a Democrat," she said.

She came away from 2004 with a high opinion of Americans' ideals and gratitude to a campaign that exceeded Bill Clinton's winning vote total of 1996 by 9 million votes.

"Basically, we are at a crux, a crossroads right now," Heinz Kerry said. "It's no place for self-indulgence. It's no place for looking back. We must be totally committed to this journey ... to believe again, to hope again."

[RexBeach]

Good Lord, this woman is a pain in the neck.

[JustaCowgirl]

The softly accented voice gives pointed advice to the Democratic Party,

Correction: The grating harridan screech gives pointed advice to the Democratic Party.

I guess I must be threatened by her.

[2banana]

"We have to develop a discipline for this party, so the people of this country know more clearly what it is to be a Democrat," she said.

The problem is, if they truthfully do this, no one will vote for them...

[NYer]

A CATHOLIC VOTER’S GUIDE -
THE FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES
These five current issues concern actions that are intrinsically evil and must never be promoted by the law. Intrinsically evil actions are those which fundamentally conflict with the moral law and can never be deliberately performed under any circumstances. It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to the non-negotiable principles involved in these issues.

1. Abortion

The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is "never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it" (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.

The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child's, who should not suffer death for others' sins.

2. Euthanasia

Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia also is a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.

In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).

3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.

4. Human Cloning

"Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through 'twin fission,' cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union" (RHL I:6).

Human cloning also involves abortion because the "rejected" or "unsuccessful" embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.

5. Homosexual "Marriage"

True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as "marriage" undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.

"When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral" (UHP 10).

ABBREVIATIONS

CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church

CPL Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Notes on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life

CRF Pontifical Council for the Family, Charter of the Rights of the Family

EV John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)

RHL Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation

UHP Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons

---

Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Catholic Ping - Come home for Easter and experience God’s merciful love. Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[I still care]

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

We had a narrow escape. As Rush says, the "kook left" has become the mainstream of the Democrat party.

[CaptRon]

Gee, how do you think this writer voted?

[COBOL2Java]

Heinz Kerry flew into town on her own Gulfstream jet (the Flying Squirrel...

How appropriate.

[Unam Sanctam]

"The church has a right and obligation to teach values," Heinz Kerry declared. "They don't have a right to restrict freedom of expression, which they did."

By exercising their freedom of expression, the Church is restricting freedom of expression? Only in the mixed up liberal mind.

[COBOL2Java]

A practicing Catholic, as is her husband, Heinz Kerry...

They need to practice some more - they're not very good at it.

[sarasota]

If it doesn't "feel right" JFK won't run?? Dear God, man, have some principles, make a decision and stick with it. Oh wait a minute; what's that I hear? flipflopflipflop

[Gerish]

"The church has a right and obligation to teach values," Heinz Kerry declared. "They don't have a right to restrict freedom of expression, which they did."

It would be interesting for her to give an example of exactly what "freedom of expression" the Church restricted. Since we all know there is none, she must be lying. Very sad that this woman has lived such a pampered life that she has no clue what her faith teaches.

[Ghengis]

I can't believe the writer of this sympathetic column did not notice the irony of these two successive paragraphs.

Heinz Kerry flew into town on her own Gulfstream jet (the Flying Squirrel, named for a Sun Valley ski run) direct from a conference on global philanthropy at Stanford.

She talked energy-efficient building design with Seattle Art Museum boss (and old friend) Mimi Gates. She dined at Wild Ginger and flew back east with takeout food from the Third Avenue restaurant.

And the unintentional self parody of her, "It's no place for self-indulgence" comment.

"Basically, we are at a crux, a crossroads right now," Heinz Kerry said. "It's no place for self-indulgence. It's no place for looking back. We must be totally committed to this journey ... to believe again, to hope again."

And they wonder why sane people either laugh at them or step back in horror.

[rollo tomasi]

This ignoramus was only one swing State (Ohio) and a little bit a fraud in a small State away from being the First Lady, in Heinz case it would have been the First (rhymes with) Witch, scary indeed.

[kellynla]

I've been a practicing Catholic for half a century and I HAVE NEVER HEARD A PRIEST TELL A CONGREGATION WHO TO VOTE OR NOT VOTE FOR! PERIOD!

And unlike the liberal so called "leaders" who have "religiously" showed up at Protestant churches around the country for decades on Sunday mornings during an election cycle, politicians and their representatives have NEVER been allowed to speak to the congregation at a Catholic Mass!

This woman has less credibility than a screen door on a submarine!

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[ikka]

Teresa Heinz Kerry - God's own personal gift to Karl Rove.

[NCC-1701]

She's a pain alright, but in a much lower region.

[NCC-1701]

She's a pain alright, but in a much lower region.