Posted on 08/29/2009 7:47:37 PM PDT by Balt
8:30 AM 8/30/2009 — Every once in a while something happens in current events that requires a conscientious priest to deviate from the Gospel lesson of the day; although it may be Divine Providence that the event I need to address with you relates very well not only to today’s Gospel lesson, but also the feast we just celebrated. I am speaking, of course, of the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and his very public funeral which was viewed by millions on television. The question you should have asked when you saw it was, “Should Ted Kennedy have been given a public funeral in a Catholic Church?” And you were right to ask it, because the answer is clearly, “No”, and this for two reasons.
Without presuming upon the state of anyone's soul before God, Mr. Kennedy fulfills all the requirements of Canon Law for what is called a "grave public sinner." This is, first of all, because of his very public stand on abortion. Were Mr. Kennedy a private person not in legislative office, without the ability to direct how our tax dollars are spent, his personal opinion regarding abortion would, most likely, not be an issue as pertains to whether he should be given Christian burial; after all, we don't investigate the private opinions of our parishioners when they die to see if we should bury them. But as a government official, Mr. Kennedy occupied a special category. The Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church is specific on this issue, and I would like to quote it for you:
Can. 1184 §1 Church funeral rites are to be denied to the following, unless they gave some signs of repentance before death:
1° notorious apostates, heretics and schismatics;
2° those who for anti-christian motives chose that their bodies be cremated;
3° other manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful.
Unfortunately, the whole concept of "scandal" seems to have been forgotten in our society; but its effects are quite obvious. There is no way that an average Catholic, watching the spectical of Roman Catholic funeral rites on television, cannot conclude that the whole "abortion thing" just isn't all that important after all.
But regardless of how one views the whole question of Catholic politicians and abortion, there is an even more objective reality at play here: Mr. Kennedy lived the last years of his life in an objective state of mortal sin. His petition to have his first marriage to his wife, Joan, annulled was denied by the Church. Some of you may remember that case. After his divorce he married again outside the Church, then applied to the Archdiocese of Boston for an annulment to his first marriage, which he received very quickly. But his wife, Joan, appealed that decision all the way to Rome; and the Roman Rota, the court at the Vatican that decides appeals to annulment cases, ruled that Kennedy’s marriage to Joan was valid and could not be annulled. This means that, as far as the Church is concerned, he was still married to Joan when he died, that the woman he subsequently married outside the Church has never been his wife, and they have been living in very public adultery ever since. If that doesn't qualify as someone who is a "manifest sinner to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful" as Canon Law says, then there must be no such thing. Unfortunately, to many American Catholics today, there is no such thing as scandal. Joan Kennedy, who remains a faithful Catholic, went on to write a book about her experience fighting the annulment of her marriage, in which she catalogs the culture of corruption that existed in the Archdiocese of Boston, where money could buy anything, including an annulment; and she anticipated, in a veiled way, how that corruption would eventually come back to explode to the detriment of the Church; as it did some years later when it became public that Cardinal Law and his predecessors had, for years, covered up the sexual abuse of children by many of their priests.
Now, don't misunderstand me. Neither I nor any other priest have a window into any man's soul. That's not the point; and I'm not passing judgement on Mr. Kennedy. The issue is not whether the Church has certainty that he is not saved; the Church has never claimed that kind of knowledge. The issue is that, objectively, he was living in a state of life that appears sinful to others;—even if, by a twist of God's mercy or mental incapacity, it is not—and that appearance is enough to warrant the Church giving some care for the tender state of the souls of the faithful, that they not be misled about the requirements of the Gospel. Even if we could conceed that some sort of funeral Mass should take place, does it take a lot of brain power to understand that it should have been done privately, with the family only, without the television cameras, and certainly without a speach by the most anti-christian, pro-abortion president our country has ever had?
So, why did Mr. Kennedy receive a very public Catholic funeral with all the trimmings? And why was a clear enemy of the Church permitted to preach a eulogy? Simple. Those responsible for making those decisions are "Tames." “Tame” is a derogatory term used sometimes by priests to describe a priest or a bishop who refuses to fight; someone who, when faced with a difficult decision, will always find a way to make it someone else’s responsibility; someone who, like water flowing down a country brook, always seeks out the path of least resistance whenever a thorny problem is at hand.1 Cardinal O'Malley, for example, was chosen Archbishop of Boston because he had a knack for holding the hands of the victims of clerical sex abuse, crying with them and feeling their pain;—he's very good at it because he's a very kind and good man—but a courageous defender of the Gospel in times of persecution he is not; most likely, he doesn't even recognize that we live in a time of persecution. The cadre of white-haired Irish monsignors who populate the ranks of his presbyterate are Bostonians; and religion—as well as politics—in Boston is decidedly tribal: when push comes to shove, you do what's good for the tribe, not for the Church or the country. That's why, for generations, Irish Catholics in Boston have continually voted for pro-abortion politicians, claiming all the while that they're faithful Catholics. Nothing trumps blood for them.
In the end, faithful priests around the country will have to do their best to try to persuade their flocks that the Kennedy funeral they saw on TV was a mistake, and find some way to reinforce the truth of the Catholic Faith. The really sad part is that, in teaching the truth of the Faith to their parishioners, they must continually dodge the road blocks thrown in their way by the leaders of the very Church they have given their lives to serve.
Yesterday, the same day as this funeral, we celebrated the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist. And why was John beheaded? The Gospel for yesterday tells us: King Harod had entered into an invalid union with a woman he was not entitled to marry, and John wouldn’t shut up about it. He was becoming an embarrassment; so, Harod shut him up, permanently. It isn’t surprising that the Gospel of the day wasn’t read at the Kennedy funeral.2
To be sure, we should certainly pray for the soul of Mr. Kennedy, as I would encourage you to pray for anyone regardless of what you may think of him personally; but, in doing so, let’s be sure we don’t lie to ourselves about it. In today’s Gospel lesson, our Lord tells a familiar parable. The tenants who had leased the vineyard forgot that they didn’t own it; and when the owner demanded an account, they responded with disrespect and violence. The Pharisees and the Hebrew priests who were present in the Temple that day were not stupid; they knew our Lord was speaking about them; St. Matthew tells us as much. But our Lord is also speaking to us; for God has also entrusted to us a vineyard. Life is not something we own for ourselves, to do with as we please, according to our own rules; our life is something we have on loan from God for a while; and, when it is over, we will be required to give an account to the owner. To help us, God has given us a Church and sacraments as fountains of grace and life. He has given us the Gospel as a path to heaven. He has placed in our own hands the tools of salvation and eternal life. And the day will come when he will ask for an account of how well we have harvested the seeds that he has provided.
The fact that this Gospel is presented to us on the weekend of this unfortunate funeral should not be dismissed as coincidence; for it reminds us of a very hard yet very important truth: Life is not really a gift from God, it’s a loan; and we never know when that loan will be called.
by Father Michael Venditti
1 For a more detailed illustration of the whole phenomena of "Tames" in the Catholic Church, search for last year's post by the Pugilist about the current Archbishop of Washington, entitled "That Pepsodent Smile."
2 To be fair, it is not usually the custom in the Latin Church to read the Gospel of the day at funerals. In the Eastern Churches of the Byzantine Tradition, if a funeral is celebrated on a feast day, the Gospel of the feast would be read, with the option of adding a Gospel for the departed afterward; thus, two Gospel would be read at the service, with the same arrangement applied to the Epistle. But the situation rarely occurs since funerals are not ordinarily permitted on feast days. Strictly speaking, this isn't really done in the Latin Church, either; but, if this is Boston and you're a Kennedy, you can get anything you want.
ping
"But regardless of how one views the whole question of Catholic politicians and abortion, there is an even more objective reality at play here: Mr. Kennedy lived the last years of his life in what most Catholics would have to preceive to be an objective state of mortal sin. To be fair, he made a petition to have his first marriage to his wife, Joan, annulled. Whether an annulment was granted regarding that marriage no one seems to know. But I do know that Sheila Rauch Kennedy appealed the rather quick annulment that Joseph P. Kennedy, II, received from the Archdiocese of Boston, taking her fight all the way to Rome; and the Roman Rota, the court at the Vatican that decides appeals to annulment cases, ruled that Joseph Kennedy’s marriage to Sheila Rauch was valid and could not be annulled. Sheila Rauch, who remains a faithful Catholic, went on to write a book about her experience fighting the annulment of her marriage, in which she catalogs the culture of corruption that existed in the Archdiocese of Boston, where money could buy anything, including an annulment; and she anticipated, in a veiled way, how that corruption would eventually come back to explode to the detriment of the Church; as it did some years later when it became public that Cardinal Law and his predecessors had, for years, covered up the sexual abuse of children by many of their priests. The Archdiocese of Boston has consistantly refused to say whether Ted Kennedy's first marriage to Joan was properly annulled and declared invalid, leaving the spector of scandal loaming for every faithful Catholic who wonders about it. Unfortunately, for most American Catholics, however, there is no such thing as scandal anymore."
Too bad nothing was said there of Mary Jo. But everything else was right on the money............
Nice job Father.
Sheila Rauch Kennedy is an Episcopalian.
The Archdiocese of Boston has consistantly refused to say whether Ted Kennedy's first marriage to Joan was properly annulled and declared invalid
I was under the impression it was John Kerry's first marriage whose status was mysterious, not Ted Kennedy's.
Other than that, a fine sermon.
Correction: The Archdiocese of Boston missed a golden opportunity.
The “Swimmer” is dead. Rest in peace Mary Jo Kopechne!
You may be right. Father Venditti says that, given the fact that there is confussion regarding this issue, he may omit that paragraph entirely in the morning. Whatever the truth, the point is still made in the later paragraph regarding the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist. It may be prudent to leave any "marriage" allusions to that. In any case, thanks for your kind words.
I believe that Father Venditti has confused the case of Sheila Rauch and Joseph P. Kennedy II with that of Edward. The confusion is understandable since, as he wrote, if you're a Kennedy in Boston you can get whatever you want.
I believe the priest is mistaken in writing that Joan Bennett Kennedy challenged the annulment of her marriage to EMK and wrote a book about it. I believe that was the wife of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Sheila Rauch Kennedy, who successfully had a Boston Archdiocese annulment overturned by the Vatican.
If the Boston Archdiocese was faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, they should have denied not only the full bore ceremony we saw today which was a total disgrace, but anything beyond a service simply to pray for his soul. The family could have just had something private at ‘the compound’ and jetted his body to DC without making the Catholic Church look like the largest, most hypocritical church on earth. It was an embarassment to the Church and to the practicing faithful. Cardinal McCarrick at the gravesite was even worse.
Similarly the Department of Defense has some ‘splainin to do. There are untold actual military heroes who served real time in real war, and/or who spent their careers in our nation’s defense, whose families, IF they can get buried at Arlington, have to wait for months to have their burial ceremony conducted at Arlington. And, when an Arlington burial IS scheduled, it’s at the pleasure of DoD, not at the pleasure of the grieving family. I have never heard of an evening burial there, tho there may be some, but never for a soldier who served two years, mostly in Paris, while a war was being conducted half a world away.
Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the US Department of Defense bathed themselves in glory today.
Because he got his annulments mixed up, and there's so much confusion about the issue, Father Venditti says he's going to omit the paragraph about annulments altogether when he preaches in the morning. Whatever the truth, the point is still made in the later paragraph regarding the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist. It may be prudent to leave any "marriage" allusions to that. In any case, he thanks everyone for their help. That's what it's all about! :)
Yep. Reminding me of the story that Queen Mary became queen of England, she had her father’s body removed from his crypt in Westminster Abbey, and dumped into the Thames.
Good point.
The official position of the church is Canon Law. It is freely available on-line here:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM
Fr. Venditti cited the appropriate canon and it is quite clear.
Living in a PUBLIC state of grave sin means Mr. Kennedy should not have been allowed a Catholic funeral. As Fr. Venditti said, it brings scandal to the church and confuses those who are trying to live according to the teachings of the church.
Another ‘today signup’ chimes in on a years-old thread.....weird.
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