HLI Priest-President Re: Kennedy Funeral Scandal

Life Site News ^ | August 29, 2009 | Kathleen Gilbert and Peter Smith

[NYer]

p>HYANNIS PORT, Massachusetts, August 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The public Catholic funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy - whose long career of abortion advocacy helped sever the American Catholic identity from the Church's pro-life teaching - will be a source of immense scandal, says Human Life International (HLI) president Fr. Tom Euteneuer.  In addition, he said, Obama's scheduled eulogy at the event amounts to a "perfect absolution" whitewashing Kennedy's opposition to Catholic moral teaching. 

A funeral mass has been scheduled for Saturday morning at the Boston Archdiocese's Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, following the Senator's death Tuesday night after a battle with brain cancer. 

Kennedy is well-known for dissenting from Catholic Church teaching in the latter decades of his public life, advocating unrestricted abortion as well as embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex "marriage."

"Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this 'Catholic' champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity," said Fr. Euteneuer in a statement Thursday. 

He continued, "There was very little about Ted Kennedy’s life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today."

"It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a 'great guy behind the scenes' as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents.". 

Euteneuer faulted Kennedy for putting "a Catholic rhetorical veneer" on liberal politics that "did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world."

"He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans."

Euteneuer told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in a Thursday interview that the best course of action for the Boston Archdiocese's Cardinal Sean O'Malley would be "Private funeral, family only - period." 

While O'Malley issued a statement this week praising the senator's "commitment to public service" and offering his prayers, he has not directly commented on the funeral plans.  LifeSiteNews.com's phone and email requests for comment from the Boston Archdiocese were not answered.

Euteneuer noted that "we don't really know" if Kennedy repented of his public position before death. "So just because he received the sacrament of reconciliation, doesn't mean he was actually reconciled with the Church and with God," he said.  "We just don't know that.  We hope for it."

However, said Euteneuer: "We know that Sen. Kennedy did not repent publicly, therefore any kind of public funeral or appearance by public figures like President Obama only reinforces the scandal.  It does not do anything to undo the damage that Sen. Kennedy has done."

Pro-life leaders, including HLI and the American Life League, were dismayed that President Obama is scheduled to deliver a eulogy at Kennedy's funeral Mass.  Obama and Kennedy have been close allies ever since Kennedy threw his weight behind Obama's presidential campaign - which was recognized as a turning point in Obama's journey to the White House.

"In a certain sense it is the perfect absolution - to use a sacramental term - of a man whose public life has been a continuous slap in the face of the Catholic Church," said Euteneuer of the eulogy.

"We were slapped in the face by President Obama at Notre Dame, and now President Obama is going to preside in a certain sense over a Catholic heretic's funeral and whitewash everything he did which was contrary to the Catholic Church."

To respectfully contact Cardinal O'Malley with concerns:
phone: 617 782-2544 
email: sdiago@rcab.org

* NOTE: see Effective Communications in Response to LifeSiteNews Reports 

Archdiocese of Boston:
phone: 617 254-0100
fax:  617 746-5762

Rev. Ray Collins, pastor
Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
phone: 617 445-2600 
fax: 617 445-1857

[NYer]

Mercifully I was unable to watch the debacle. This was a Political not a Catholic funeral. The above message cannot be stated enough.

Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[notaliberal]

Well said, Fr. Euteneuer

[jessduntno]

“We know that Sen. Kennedy did not repent publicly, therefore any kind of public funeral or appearance by public figures like President Obama only reinforces the scandal. It does not do anything to undo the damage that Sen. Kennedy has done.”

Amen...

[IrishCatholic]

Let’s pray he reconciled before his death and received absolution.

I have no kind feelings for the man or the damage that he did, but by the same token I will pray he was not lost forever.

[Melian]

Maybe God, in His mercy, took Eunice, by all reports a TRULY devout Catholic, first so she wouldn’t have to sit through this travesty.

[immadashell]

I’m surprised Zero didn’t pardon the sleaze bag for the murder of Mary Jo.

[Albion Wilde]

Is is possible to retroactively excommunicate an unrepentant anti-life apologist?

[rbmillerjr]

This commentary....

...nailhead.

[Salvation]

**Euteneuer told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in a Thursday interview that the best course of action for the Boston Archdiocese’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley would be “Private funeral, family only - period.” **

I agree with this. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

[tbpiper]

Senator Ted Kennedy - whose long career of abortion advocacy

He's currently using his great legislative abilities to explain the subtle nuances of his abortion reasoning to the Purgatory Control Board*. Fortunately, there are no time constriants.

* I made that up, by the way.

[Salvation]

Father Enteneuer knows this too:

We have no idea if Senator Kennedy had a deathbed re-conversion. We cannot judge.

Beginning Catholic: The Anointing of the Sick: Comfort and Healing [Ecumenical]

[Salvation]

**Mercifully I was unable to watch the debacle.**

You have more mercy than me. I cannot listen to Obortion Obama and turned off the TV then.

[Nathan Zachary]

Euteneuer noted that "we don't really know" if Kennedy repented of his public position before death. "So just because he received the sacrament of reconciliation, doesn't mean he was actually reconciled with the Church and with God," he said. "We just don't know that. We hope for it."

You can't be a practicing and knowing unrepentant sinner all your life then repent when you know your ticket is about to be punched, and expect to be "reconciled" with God.

"There is a way that some think right, but it leads in the end to death." (Prov.16:25).

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness...For this, as stubble is prey for the flames and as straw vanishes in the fire, so their root will rot, their blossom be carried off like dust, for rejecting the Law of God Almighty, and despising the word of the Holy One of Israel." (Is.5:20-24).

"...to those who have been corrupted and lack faith, nothing can be pure -- the corruption is both in their minds and in their consciences. They claim to have knowledge of God but the things they do are nothing but a denial of him; they are outrageously rebellious and quite incapable of doing good." (Tit.1:15-16).

"He who keeps the commandment is keeper of himself, but he who despises the word shall die." (Pr.19:16).

"It is not those who say to me, 'Lord, Lord', who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven." (Mt.7:21).

"If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." (Mat.19:17).

Seems Kennedy fails life where ever I look.

[Mouton]

The Kennedy always had “their” cardinal do their bidding. Marriage annulments and whatever else they needed, O mally and before him Law and Cushing were there at their beck and call.

This particular bum should have not be allowed to be buried with full honors from the Church whose precepts he openly flaunted. As a Catholic I am insulted beyond belief. While one should not be judgmental about another and allow for redemption, I believe there has to be some movement on the part of the sinner to seek redemption and forgiveness. I have not seen or heard of either from this bum.

Take out and dump the garbage should have been the Eulogy.

Vince

[brushcop]

You can't be a practicing and knowing unrepentant sinner all your life then repent when you know your ticket is about to be punched, and expect to be "reconciled" with God.

Exactly right, called using liberty (one's faith in Christ) as LICENSE. Nope won't work. Good post and thanks.

[nutmeg]

Well said, Fr. Euteneuer

Amen.

[Albion Wilde]

I think the article did a great job of making the distinction between a private act of redemption, and the necessity to renounce a lifetime of public scandals. He failed to do that; in fact, in his last sleazy act as a Congressman, he begged that the law passed by Democrats to keep a Republican out of office be set aside so that a Democrat could take his seat ahead of schedule. He was publicly unrepentant to the end.

It is a disgrace that the RC church gave him a public funeral and invited his non-Catholic, pretend-Christian, pro-death political heir to take the pulpit. Why doesn't the Pope rein in this travesty?

[wintertime]

..nailhead.
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Exactly! Hammer hits nail squarely on its head!

[Mouton]

I think the silence from the Vatican is their stance on the subject.

This clan is probably the last vestige of the “indulgence” absolutions given to well healed or connected church members. It is a tradition that should never have begun. One of the movies that touched on corruption in the church was Godfather III. It seemed pretty much on the mark from what I gather. Everyone must pay for their sins, even a church that has been through tremendous scandals over the past 20 years perhaps as a result of having bent too many precepts like we are presently witnessing with this funeral of the absurd. Vince