With acknowledgement to Frs Brian Harrison, O.S. and Thomas Euteneuer, President of Human Life International.
It is no secret that there have always been priests, bishops and even popes, anxious to serve Caesar rather than God. Pope Stephen VI dug up the corpse of his predecessor and put it on trial in order to earn the favour of the Emperor; Blessed Fr Noel Pinot was sent to the guillotine by an apostate priest, and numerous priests sided with the murderous communists who sparked the Spanish civil war for some worldly benefit, such as the advancement of the Basque nationalist cause.
However, since the Council, many clerics have fallen head over heels in love with the world (which is just a more venerable word for the secular asylum). Nowhere was this more tragically illustrated than in the recent pantomime funeral for the late Senator Kennedy. The televised funeral Mass, celebrated in Boston's Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, was a scandal comparable to that given several months ago when America’s most prestigious “Catholic” university bestowed an honorary doctorate upon Barack Obama, the most pro-abortion and 'pro-gay' president in U.S. history. The message it sent out was, the Church is not serious about the defence of innocent human life or the sanctity of marriage; it’s more a disciplinary matter, like that old fish on Friday fixation.
The funeral had the usual farcical and embarrassing Novus Ordo canonisation: with Fr Mark Hession eulogising about what a wonderful Catholic Christian Ted was, assuring us that we could be "confident" that he is already with Jesus in glory! Well, I have news for Fr Hession, many are equally confident that Hell is full of what the world regards as “jolly good chaps”.
Senator Edward Kennedy, the secular, brash and privileged "Lion of the Senate" had everything that the world had to offer, including comprehensive political protection from his criminally buffoonish and cowardly causing of Mary Jo Kopechne's death. However, it and its subsequent cover-up were perhaps the least among the many sins he will have to account for before the Throne of Grace. Ted Kennedy went on to continue his murderous rampage throughout his political career with his constant advocacy of the legalized murder of abortion, and his defence of Roe-v-Wade by vetoing potential Supreme Court judges who might have rectified that terrible injustice. Ted Kennedy is a man with oceans of innocent blood on his hands.
Hitler is held in universal opprobrium for supporting policies that led to the death of millions of innocent human beings. Kennedy was held in universal approbation (by the left) for supporting policies that led to the death of millions of innocent human beings. How to explain? Well, I suspect the clue lies in that sacred cow of the left, “discrimination”. You see Hitler discriminated by concentrating the killing on one racial group, whereas Kennedy did not discriminate: his victims could be Jew or gentile, black or white, rich or poor, male or female. So this in the twisted logic of the secular asylum makes the killing okay, even praiseworthy, and earned for Kennedy the highest accolades of such organisations as Planned Parenthood and NARAL. In truth, he did of course discriminate: he picked his victims exclusively from the small, voiceless, unseen, and powerless; those who can neither fight back nor file a legal suite.
Boston Cardinal Séan O’Malley, stung by the worldwide outrage over this scandal, responded with the usual left wing blather about the senator’s work for the poor and not being judgemental. All humbug of course, because had Ted Kennedy espoused some cause anathema to the secular left, like holocaust denial, there is no way these worldly clerics would have staged this travesty of a Catholic funeral. No one of course may dare judge the state of the senator’s soul, that can and must be left to God, but his actions we most certainly can and should judge. Ted Kennedy and the clerics who staged this public scandal will not of course be the first to attempt to hide their betrayal of Christ behind a smokescreen of concern for the poor.
We must, as a matter of Catholic duty, earnestly pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him, let alone exalt him with the full honours of a public Catholic funeral. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. Indeed, he was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one could think of.
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