Posted on 08/27/2009 10:22:18 PM PDT by STARWISE
Saturday's grandiose Catholic funeral for Senator Ted Kennedy has the potential to be a scandal that will make Notre Dame's Obama Day a walk in the park.
With all four living former Presidents in attendance and an address from President Barack Obama, the funeral is set to be a royal crowning, right inside a Catholic Church, of a man who betrayed the most fundamental moral teachings of the faith.
What example will this give to Catholics and the rest of the world looking in? It will surely belie the Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life and sexuality.
"Surely," they will say, "if one of the most vociferous proponents of abortion and homosexuality in politics is so feted in the Church, the Church cannot possibly regard abortion as murder."
Would anyone so honor one who so advocated what the church officially considers an "unspeakable crime"?
The Church in the US has suffered a dangerous precedent with the recent Notre Dame award to President Obama. However, President Obama is not Catholic. Therefore, the impact of the scandal was blunted.
Regarding Senator Kennedy, however, the stakes are much higher in terms of scandal and public relations.
Kennedy, began his life as a Catholic in great ceremony. At age seven, he received his First Communion from Pope Pius XII in the Vatican. He was also pro-life early in his political career.
"Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized - the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old," he wrote in 1971.
However, abandoning the practice of faith is regarded as worse than never having known.
The Bible, in the second book of Peter teaches: "For if, flying from the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they be again entangled in them and overcome: their latter state is become unto them worse than the former. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice than, after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them." (2 Peter 2:20-21)
Rev. Patrick Tarrant, pastor of the Church where Kennedy is to be buried has informed the media that he was present at Kennedy's death and thus hopefully the senator made a last confession and was reconciled with the Church.
However, only a public repudiation of his militantly anti-life and anti-family actions would serve to lessen the scandal of the upcoming funeral extravaganza.
I don't discount that that might be coming. After all, Kennedy did have President Obama deliver a letter to the Pope when Obama made his visit to the Vatican in July. Although unlikely, given the Senator's recent, intense support for Obama's health care reforms, perhaps there was a public confession in the letter waiting to be released. We can hope and pray.
If we assume a private confession was made there could be a private funeral Mass for the family, without politicians and media. And of course there would still be a secular memorial event, with all the pomp and ceremony for this star of the secular world.
Such a deliberately subdued Catholic liturgical event for the Senator would, at this time, with the announcement of the Catholic funeral already out, come at the cost of enduring the rage of those who have become used to the Church giving in to their demands. However, the eternal benefit would be to send a clear message to Catholic politicians in particular, and to the public in general, that the Church is actually serious about the sanctity of human life.
It could also be an opportunity for Church leaders to repent of having failed to work hard enough to bring wayward Catholic politicians back to faith, or even of having in many cases led them away from the faith, as some clergy are known to have influenced Kennedy.
It would not be the first time the Church has apologized for not living up to it's pro-life convictions. In 2000, when Pope John Paul II was making his much touted "Universal Prayer" of "Confession Of Sins And Asking For Forgiveness" one of the ignored apologies concerned the unborn.
Then-Archbishop François Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân prayed "let us pray for those who are most defenseless, the unborn killed in their mother's womb or even exploited for experimental purposes by those who abuse the promise of biotechnology and distort the aims of science."
The Pope responded in prayer, "God, our Father, you always bear the cry of the poor. How many times have Christians themselves not recognized you in the hungry, the thirsty and the naked, in the persecuted, the imprisoned, and in those incapable of defending themselves, especially in the first stages of life. For all those who have committed acts of injustice by trusting in wealth and power and showing contempt for the "little ones" who are so dear to you, we ask your forgiveness: have mercy on us and accept our repentance. We ask this through Christ our Lord."
Canada suffered a similar scandal in 2000, with the death of former Catholic Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Despite his having legalized abortion, divorce and homosexuality he was given a state funeral in Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, presided over by the archbishop of Montreal, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte. One of the pallbearers was Cuba's communist president Fidel Castro.
Five months after the funeral Calgary Bishop Fred Henry was asked if he were offended by Trudeau’s funeral. He replied: “Yes, I was.... there were some issues or questions there that might make one kind of pause and consider whether or not this was an appropriate funeral to have or not."
Did he repent? When did he recant, renounce the murder of the unborn and do public penance?
The phones at the Boston Archdiocese should ring off the hook TODAY!
Here are the numbers:
Cardinal O'Malley's No: 617 782-2544
Office of the Archdiocese: 617 254-0100
Fax: 617 746-5762
Also call the Pastor of the Basilica
Rev. Ray Collins 617 445-2600
Fax: 617 445-1857
I wish to pray --- in quiet and in earnest ---for the repose of the soul of Ted Kennedy, that in some way the great mercy of God will have prevailed, even at the last moment, to bring Kennedy to what I would want for myself: a searing confrontation with Truth. A heart broken with repentance. A plea for forgiveness. The miracle of rescue.
But a grave public scandal has been given by Kennedy's career of unrelenting support for what the Second Vatican Council called the "unspeakable crime" of abortion, and the public scandal will be multiplied a hundredfold by a honorific funeral that looks and sounds and reeks to high heaven like a virtual canonization.
Canon Law is very clear--see Canon 1184-3 "Church funerals are to be denied to the following (unless they gave some sign of repentance before their death): manifest sinners to whom a church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful."
As Monica Miller pointed out, Cardinal Sean O'Malley's statement on the death of Ted Kennedy is boiler-plate rhetoric that of course entirely ignores the fact that Kennedy was a staunch and proud supporter mass abortion, a crime like that of Pharaoh Ramses II and King Herod I, killers of the small and weak, and the would-be murderers of the infant Moses and of the infant Jesus.
Yes-- it's up to the bishop to decide who will get a funeral Mass. So Cardinal Sean O'Malley, archbishop of Boston, needs to hear from thousands of people.
The phones at the Boston Archdiocese should ring off the hook TODAY!
Here are the numbers:
Cardinal O'Malley's No: 617 782-2544
Office of the Archdiocese: 617 254-0100
Fax: 617 746-5762
Also call the Pastor of the Basilica
Rev. Ray Collins 617 445-2600
Fax: 617 445-1857
If you don't talk to them directly-- leave a message with the secretaries or their voice mail! BUT PLEASE DO SOMETHING.
Really? That's the way it is here. Arlington is also not consecrated ground in the sense we know it.
Yeah, I think the Church stood up and said no, just not as publicly as some people would have liked.
BTW, the Redemptorists are not your most obedient of orders. They run a couple parishes here, one of them a HUGE, historic gothic church up on the north side. The place is always packed. I hear tell that it has more of a gospel feel than not. One sainted woman I knew didn't really think it was a Catholic church - and she was the target audience.
Unbelievable, but this adulation makes sense only in light of some institution’s higher-ups wanting desperately (pressure from parishoners? wanting political influence in the “wider world”?) to have some form of “American royalty.”
BTTT
I said consecrated, not sacred. I do agree that Arlington should not be sullied with this man’s remains either, but it could well be that the Church refused to allow him to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.
A friend of mine today suggested that Kennedy’s purgatory should be for his spirit to visit every pro-abortion Congressman and tell them how wrong he was.
the catholic church is a scam.
It will be up to the local diocese. I'm thinking he's going out with bells and whistles. Rome, last time I checked, is still in Italy. The Senator's remains are still in America.
He's baptized. I'm thinking he is now engaged in the final deliberation of what “is” is.
When I think of the times when babies were denied a mass if they were not baptized prior to death (that does not happen anymore) - this does make a catholic very sad.
Of course - there are many mafia members getting their send-offs on a regular basis.
Chapaquidic HO!
Man, you’re giving religion a bad name. Check out your own alleged Christian attitude.
“The Bushes shouldn’t be getting within a thousand miles of that place. They ought to know better.”
W and Laura are libs at heart, and discernment has never been their strong suit. Laura is pro-abortion. Honoring a Kennedy is not a problem for them.
On the hope that Kennedy may have confessed and repented in the end, he would have a canonical right to a small, private funeral that would not give further scandal. What's coming up gives every indication of being a reeking mess worthy of the Medicis.
they are a scam. they also at a catholic university covered up all religious symbols so Obama could come make a speech. They are a farce and a scam. They will allow the Kennedys to have a full funeral with the life that, that man lead.
Thanks for the ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.