In the Roman Catholic Church, we worship God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, not the three stooges known as the brothers Kennedy. Each in his own way was a rank disgrace to the Church, to our nation and to the Irish. Don't drink the soup of the Kennedy Klan propaganda. Contributions? What contributions? Chappaquiddick? "In Robert Bork's America, women will die from back alley abortions!"? Babykiller extraordinaire? Darling of Naral and Planned barrenhood? Antiwar antiAmerican scum? Treasonous SOB running to advise Yuri Andropov on how to combat Ronaldus Maximus on public image in the Cold War? Betrayer of troops in the field in every war of his lifetime? Sincerely believing Catholic members of Klan Kennedy??? Name three alive today. Klan Kennedy was descended from two Irish who arrived in about 1850 during the Potato Famine. The Modern generation of Klan Kennedy have been disgracing those ancestors all their lives, and have been Castle Irish (the traitorous kind to their own) who long since drank the soup of the enemies of the Irish.
Unlike many here, I have absolutely no problem with the Kennedys voting for programs that actually provided for the material well-being of the poorest of God's children or to protect the rights of racial minorities. Those actions dp not sanitize the damage that family has done to Catholicism in this country by their every scheme and public moral debacle of the last five or six decades to make respectable and "Catholic" public defiance of the right to life, moral conservatism, the vows of marriage, the definition of marriage. They are Lucifer's patron saints of cafeteria "Catholicism."
If, as should have been the case, Teddy had been formally excommunicated by Richard Cardinal Cushing or by Humberto Cardinal Madeiros or by Bernard Cardinal Law or by Sean Cardinal O'Malley, this fiasco would never have occurred. Comrade Obama speaking from the pulpit in a Roman Catholic Church??? Giving some pagan eulogy about Teddy being a great senator??? A Catholic Church awash in apostates, heretics and antiChrist wannabes falling all over themselves in their tribute to the Hyannisport babykiller???
The Kennedy Klan never practiced WHAT??? Birth control? Abortion? I may not be able to prove that they DID these things any more than you can prove that they did not but let's not assume the best against all evidence. Silence will suffice.
The Kennedys made Catholicism respectable??? What??? I don't really care what Hieronymous Q. Snuffington thinks or thought of Catholicism. We don't need his sufferance or that of Muffy of the Junior League or Chatsworth of the polo club or Skipper down at the yacht basin. Ours is the one true Church founded and guaranteed by Jesus Christ Himself and we have no need of Castle Irish trash like the Kennedys whoring after secular respectability at the expense of dogma and the Teaching Magisterium. They "brought the Catholic Church into the mainstream in a primarily, at that time, Protestant country." You are not talking about all Protestants but only the lamestream old, dying denominations with no spines, no guts and no determination, the ones that have fallen from morality, one by one and wallow in nothing but a half vast Marxist "social gospel." We are not talking Wisconsin or Missouri Synod Lutherans, Westminster Confession Presbyterians, Evangelicals, Pentecostals and others willing (with some imperfections of dogma) to fight for the Scriptures of Our Lord, whose grudging respect on abortion, marriage and similar issues is more worth having but mainline folks without a religious bone in their bodies or religious brain cell in their heads, aliens to the actual Christian Faith. The Kennedys whored after respectability in those alien precincts and you call that "respectability."
My Irish grandmother got off the boat from Cork in Southie in 1895 when she was a twelve-year old. Trust me: You don't have a clue about "the pugnacious part of the Irish personality" nor did the Hyannisport whale nor did he scrap is way up from the bottom. His father graduated Harvard in the WW-I era, became the bootlegger of choice for his classmates, parlayed the rum-running money into Hollywood and political influence, became Ambassador to England when Teddy was pre-kindergarten, etc. Mother Rosie was the daughter of John "Honey" Fitzgerald, disgraceful in his own right but NEVER poor. The brothers Kennedy were the Irish version of Sen. Jay Rockefeller struggling to the top despite the disadvantages of his birth. Puhleeeze!
Your last and ONLY your last paragraph makes sense.
Note that I have not mentioned the usual stuff about the social life and personal victims of Jon, Bobby! or Ted. Sean Cardinal O'Malley had the authority, as ordinary of the Boston Archdiocese to ban any funeral whatsoever in any Catholic Church in his archdiocese. So let's not pretend that he somehow lacked the authority. When Obama desecrated Notre Shame, Bishop John D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend refused to show up and made no secret of his absolute disapproval. Spineless Cardinal O'Malley not only allowed this fiasco, he participated in it.
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You wrote: "Sean Cardinal O'Malley had the authority, as ordinary of the Boston Archdiocese to ban any funeral whatsoever in any Catholic Church in his archdiocese. So let's not pretend that he somehow lacked the authority."
"Spineless Cardinal O'Malley not only allowed this fiasco, he participated in it."
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I didn't watch a minute of it, but I have read countless reports and have been ensnared by rehashed news reports while channel surfing. Will the coverage ever end? *sigh* He was a senator for crying out loud! One, out of one hundred others. Is the longest serving senator Byrd expecting a similar spectacle? (Given his early days in the KKK, thank God he's not RC). Has any other senator been afforded such funeral fanfare coverage?
One more question: if we are to believe the reports that claim O'Malley refused the Kennedy's the use of the cathedral, then couldn't he have told the Kennedy's to bar the TV cameras inside the church where Obama and Kennedy's granchildren made political appeals and speeches?
The Kennedy's got their political spectacle at the expense of the Church, thanks to the complicit Boston archdiocese. It's too hard to believe they wanted anything else.
It seems to me that during his lifetime, the senator thought more about his democrat party's positions on abortion than he did about the Church's teachings.
Thank you for all of your paragraphs and for pinging me. You have a marvelous mind and the ability to clearly express it! :)
Elizabeth
BlackElk, You’re going to need a strong stomach to get through this one. NOT one word about abortion. Only his opposition to the death penalty!!!!!
The following are excerpts from the letter as read by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick at Kennedy’s private burial service Saturday in Arlington National Cemetery:
“Most Holy Father, I asked President Obama to personally hand-deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep faith himself, he understands how important my Catholic faith is to me, and I am so deeply grateful to him. I hope this letter finds you in good health.
“I pray that you have all of God’s blessings as you lead our Church and inspire our world during these challenging times. I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and although I continue treatment the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old, and preparing for the next passage of life.
“I have been blessed to be part of a wonderful family. Both of my parents, particularly my mother, kept our Catholic faith at the center of our lives. That gift of faith has sustained and nurtured, and provided solace to me in the darkest hours.
“I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my path. I want you to know Your Holiness that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I have worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination, and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty, and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and been the focus of my work as a United States Senator.
“I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field, and I’ll continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.
“I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic Your Holiness. And though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith. I continue to pray for God’s blessings on you and on our Church, and would be most thankful for your prayers for me.”
Two weeks later, Kennedy received a response from the Vatican. McCarrick read the response in part, as follows:
“The Holy Father has read the letter which you entrusted to President Obama, who kindly presented it to him during their recent meeting. He was saddened to know of your illness, and asked me to assure you of his concern and his spiritual closeness. He is particularly grateful for your promise of prayers for him, for the needs of our universal church.
“His Holiness prays that in the days ahead, you may be sustained in faith and hope, and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God, our merciful father. He invokes upon you the consolation and peace promised by the risen savior to all who share in his sufferings, and trust in his promise of eternal life.
“Commending you and the members of your family to the loving intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father cordially imparts his apostolic blessing as a pledge of wisdom, comfort, and strength in the Lord.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/29/kennedy.pope.letter/index.html
Have you sent this to O’Malley? Or-— what? What shall we do now? I mean to live our our Baptismal vocation a prophets, and combat the sloth and acedia which (for me) ate the principal sins which flow from shame?
“My Irish grandmother got off the boat from Cork in Southie in 1895 when she was a twelve-year old. Trust me: You don’t have a clue about “the pugnacious part of the Irish personality”
LOL! You make my point. You are a perfect example of the pugnacious Irish personality. Your whole tome is pugnacious, and aggressive, and vituperative, and downright nasty towards your own religion. By the way, I too had an Irish grandmother, right off the boat. We have something in common. If you want to hate your own religion because it isn’t pure enough for you, feel free. Lots of Irish hate Catholicism for one reason or the other. I choose not to.
I think this Pope is great, and piece by piece he is changing the Church back to its original traditional stance, and I hope he lives long enough to accomplish his ends. There will be blips and burps along the way, but I’m rooting for him. I hate to inject such a cheery thought into a conversation with someone who obviously is more interested in axes to grind than anything else. What side of the bed did you get up on this morning?
“The Kennedy Klan never practiced WHAT??? Birth control? Abortion? I may not be able to prove that they DID these things any more than you can prove that they did not but let’s not assume the best against all evidence. Silence will suffice.”
P.S., I think the evidence is in the size of their families.