I'm glad you're reading St. Igantius. Unfortunately, it's relevance to Harley's original post and my response is nil. Harley suggested that on the basis of the funeral given to Teddy we could deduce something about the abortion stance of the entire Church, right Harley?
St. Ignatius, on the other hand, is saying that the bishop, a bishop, any bishop is the pastoral representative of the Church and carries the authority of the Church with him. Note that he is not saying that the work or teaching of a particular bishop will necessarily be reflective of the official teaching or dogma of the Church. For instance there have been occasions throughout Church history where bishops taught heresy or apostatized. It's still happening today.
Is it necessary to say that this does not mean that the Church as a whole embraced heresy? Jesus' promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church does not apply to individual bishops. St. Ignatius knew this. Read a little further in his writings. You'll see that he's emphasizing the authority and responsibility of bishops for they stand in persona Christi.
Thus, simply because a bishop presides or is present at Teddy Kennedy's funeral, it does not mean that the Catholic Church endorses the life of Teddy. It means that the funeral is Catholic, the rites are Catholic and the sacraments of the Church are dispensed because the bishop or his representative is present (see St. Ignatius) but it is not it's not an invitation from the universal Church to imitate Teddy. He would need to be canonized for that to apply and I don't see that happening.
Keep up the reading.
Actually my inference was more to do with how the Church enforces its doctrine. They say one thing but then they do something else. As one example, they'll say they believe in abortion and "fight" against abortion, but in actually they do nothing to stop or sanction the teaching of abortions within their own Church. They put out a piece of paper that says one thing but they do nothing within their own walls to curb it. When people criticize what is going on, they say, "Ohhhhhh, we have a piece of paper and that makes everything right." Ted Kennedy was a big abortion proponent and yet the Church will probably go right ahead and give him a great send off. I could be wrong but we'll see tomorrow.
With all due respect, the "Church" is all phony with its mountain of rules and regulations that it never obeys. In my mind it's like the actions of the Pharisees.