It may be so that many politicians, "thinking Catholics", "seamless garment but still pro-death" Catholics, and all their bishops (those whose skulls are not paving the floor of Hades already) have been invisibly excommunicated already.
I hope so.
But it is in the nature of a visible hierarchy which desires to be seen as in authority that public acts matter.
Giving Holy Communion to Kennedy matters, because of the effect on all of this who witness the act.
Kennedy's hypothetical private and invisible excommunication does not matter, now because no one knows, and later because "It is written: " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' " So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God." (Romans 14:11-12).
Invisible excommunications which do not exclude the invisibly excommunicated from the Eucharist are unnecessary, per Romans.
It would be better, IMVHO, for the swimmer and all of his buddies to get the boot.
I have a theory as to what happened to the vigorous American version of Roman Catholicism that flourished under such giants as Bishop Fulton Sheen, Francis Cardinal Spellman, Richard Cardinal Cushing (soft on birth control and Kennedys but good on the rest), James Cardinal McIntyre, Samuel Cardinal Stritch, John Cardinal Carberry, et al.
American Catholics were brought up on (true) tales of how unfairly the 1928 Catholic Democrat nominee Al Smith had been treated. Al Smith was really, really Catholic and much more admired among Catholics than non-Catholics had suspected. The next Catholic nominee was, of course, JFK, a philanderer and phony of the first order BUT Catholics (and many other Americans) fell in love with a wealthy, handsome, glib, superficially educated young senator who displayed major league profile, however deficient his courage.
Many Catholics, traditionally Democrat, then fell so in love with JFK that they began to imagine that submission to JFK was in and of itself Catholicism. RFK succeeded the slain JFK in this respect. Ted the Swimmer has not been confused with any of his elder brothers but Catholics have never recovered completely. Abortion and homosexuality are the issues that are bringing Catholics to our senses ever soooooo slowly, along with a patriotism and martial spirit that was seemingly embodied by JFK but utterly abandoned by his political party since 1972 and the McGovern coup. JFK was a supply sider to some extent and often cited by Jack Kemp.
Under Ronaldus Maximus and now under Dubya, Catholics have voted majority GOP. Did you know that Ronald Reagan was baptized a Catholic in Dixon, Illinois? After his parents split, his mother brought him up in the Church of the Nazarene but she continued to bring up his elder brother, Neal "Moon" Reagan as a Catholic. "Moon" remained a very active Catholic layman to the day he died. He was a successful construction contractor.
If Rome will simply continue to do its job of replacing apostate bishops with determined Catholic bishops, you will see Catholics become a steadfast GOP voting bloc. That result will not be Rome's motive but it will be the result of increasing Mass attendance, increasing devotion to the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, the increase in confessions, that will all result from far more Catholic bishops. Why, we may even become irresistible to Jim Noble and many other good and presently non-Catholic folks who are similar to him.
One more Kennedy matter: The annulment of the marriage of Jackie Kennedy's sister Lee Radziwell, the apparent annulments of Ted Kennedy's longtime marriage to his first wife Joan, and of his nephew Joseph Kennedy from his first wife Sheila Rauch, has done great damage to the AmChurch's reputation for integrity leading people to reasonably imagine that rich Catholics can get divorces while Catholics of modest means cannot. The answer again is that there are bishops who are successors to Judas and some of my fellow Irish who think they are Henry VIII. No other public excommunication would restore the integrity of AmChurch than that of Ted Kennedy and his current "wife" Victoria (herself a "divorced" "Catholic"). If Sean Cardinal O'Malley won't do it, send him to Rome and bring Archbishop Ray Burke in from St. Louis to do what needs doing. Ray can also deal with Voice of the Apostates, Call to Apostasy, "Renew", ex-priest/Boston Globe anti-Catholic and anti-American columnist James Carroll, and all of the other termites emerging from Law's woodwork in Boston.
That was a very good point you made about how it matters that the bad guys publicly receive communion. We call that the sin of scandal and, under the circumstances, each instance would also seem to be a mortal sin. AmChurch does not seem to grasp the concept of scandal.
Who can disagree that Ted the Swimmer and his buddies should get the boot, at the very least? Personally, I would prefer more vigorous means: The auto da fe is God's chosen way to purge sin from the land! Another soul to heaven from Torquemada's band!!!! Iron maiden. Thumbscrews. Pit and Pendulum. Strappado. Rope. Rack..........
On behalf of the Society and Gentlemen's Club of St. Tomas de Torquemada, Arrogant Bustard is reputed to be spending his engineering skills rehabilitating the disciplinary instruments and the Ladies Auxliary ar preparing refreshments to be enjoyed by the observers.