Posted on 03/31/2012 5:36:48 AM PDT by IbJensen
PAXTON, MASSACHUSETTS, March 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Members of the Kennedy clan may be shoo-ins for every office in the state of Massachusetts, but they are not guaranteed access to young Catholic minds.
Anna Maria College in Paxton uninvited Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Ted Kennedy, after Bishop Robert J. McManus said her positions on abortion, homosexuality, and the Obama administration’s mandate on insurance coverage for abortifacient contraception and sterilization were incompatible with Catholic teaching.
The college said in a press release that it obeyed the bishop “with great regret,” saying that “as a small, Catholic college that relies heavily on the good will of its relationship with the Bishop and the larger Catholic community, its options are limited.”
A spokesman for the college told the media Kennedy deserved high marks for her work on behalf of “gun control.”
The backlash from liberal Catholics against the decision was swift.
Steve Krueger, chairman of the Catholic Democrats, said, “Increasingly, we see more and more bishops playing the role of enforcers of the faith rather than shepherds of souls, because they squandered the trust that they once had and the authority that came with it.”
Sister Janet Eisner, president of Emmanuel College, which gave Vicki an honorary degree in 2010, said, “I find it hard to believe in Massachusetts, in 2012, that this is happening.”
Kennedy responded in a press release, saying of the bishop, “by objecting to my appearance at Anna Maria College he has made a judgment about my worthiness as a Catholic. This is a sad day for me and an even sadder one for the Church I love.”
Some claimed the bishop had been pressured by an undisclosed “wealthy donor,” an assertion the diocese forcefully rejected. Spokesman Ray Delisle told local media, “it doesn’t take a donor to convince the bishops to act on their principles.” Patrick Whelan, president of Catholic Democrats, said the bishop told him, “This is my decision and mine alone, and nobody’s pressuring me to do this.”
He said the bishop added, “sometimes it’s lonely at the top.”
“We would want Bishop McManus to know that there’s a multitude of Catholics who would support his decision,” Adam Wilson, director of communications at the Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic higher education watchdog organization, told LifeSiteNews.com. “Just three years ago, more than 367,000 people signed The Cardinal Newman Society’s ‘Notre Dame Scandal’ petition in support of the bishops’ speakers policy, which the Worcester diocese just referenced.” That scandal involved Notre Dame’s invitation for President Barack Obama to serve as commencement speaker in 2009 and to receive an honorary law degree.
Today’s dust-up was not Kennedy’s first brush with a faithful Church hierarchy. In 2004, she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post entitled, “The Altar is Not a Battlefield,” which called depriving pro-abortion politicians (such as her husband) Communion a “harsh penalty” that was “flawed and intellectually dishonest.” A month later, the Vatican codified this policy in “Worthiness to Receive,” authored by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The Church had forbidden Ted Kennedy from receiving Communion in 1983, following his divorce from his first wife, Joan. According to his biographer Adam Clymer, he received an annulment “10 or 11 years” later. He married Victoria in 1992. She had interned for him in 1976.
Kennedy is still scheduled to address Boston College’s law school commencement later this year.
Whenever a coach determines the team is not performing according to the plan, he will install a program best called, “going back to the basics.”
The church, all churches are not called upon to be popular with the worldly, but rather to be a plumb line with which to provide a true measurement - like a surveyor must find a monument in order to start his work.
I wish this bishop would come to Newark NJ and get rid of the gay marriage course at our diocesan university.
She married a Kennedy. Therefore(according to the lame-stream media), the world should kneel in her presence.
She has serviced a reprobate who deliberately drowned a young woman.
no legitimate World History or American History courses being taught at these universities which are phony. Kids graduate and know nothing about what’s happened in the past that creates a nation’s slide into oblivion.
That’s the way the socialistt/communist instructors indoctrinate the minds full of mush with garbage instead of intelligence.
Would seem the sister is in need of a habit as well as a vocation.
Reggie, pay attention. Y o u a r e n o t a R o m a n C a t h o l i c.
No legitimate priest would give absolution to you.
Ib, was your post 28 meant for me?
Yes, I believe so, but the content dealt entirely with Reggie and her cafeteria Catholic personna.
On top of that, the graduates learn little enough about math, science, English, etc.
For Seton Hall University to offer a course on “gay marriage” is absolutely ridiculous; the Archbishop spoke against it, but in the end he controls the college. When religious orders operate schools within a diocese the bishop has to give his approval; when the college in question is the diocesan college (as Seton Hall is), his control is absolute.
Ok, Ib, I get it—Reggie is one of Teddy’s wife’s names—I didn’t realize that was whom to which you were referring.
Lent is a good time for Kennedy to think about the worthiness of her soul and her apostasy and heresy, IMO
~~~~~
Exactly! The rules are always different for them,
they expect.
So impressed and gratified they did this.
God bless Tom Monaghan (founder of Domino’s Pizza) who’s building a college and an entire town for conservative, normal, decent folks and families at Ave Maria.
http://www.avemaria.com/Discover_Ave_Maria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Maria,_Florida
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IitGrVyXpIk
Note to above.
To eliminate any confusion, the Ave Maria University I reference above is in FL, south of Naples.
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.