Excerpts of Kennedy letter to pope and response

Newsvine ^ | August 29, 2009

[NYer]

Excerpts of the letter from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy that President Barack Obama delivered to Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year and an account of the pope's response, as read by Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington:

"Most Holy Father I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep faith himself, he understands how important my Roman Catholic faith is to me, and I am so deeply grateful to him. I hope this letter finds you in good health. I pray that you have all of God's blessings as you lead our church and inspire our world during these challenging times. I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines.

"I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago and although I continue treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life. I have been blessed to be part of a wonderful family and both of my parents, particularly my mother, kept our Catholic faith at the center of our lives. That gift of faith has sustained and nurtured and provides solace to me in the darkest hours. I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my path. I want you to know Your Holiness that in my nearly 50 years of elective office I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I have worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty and fought to end war.

"Those are the issues that have motivated me and have been the focus of my work as a United States senator. I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field and I will continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone. I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith. I continue to pray for God's blessings on you and on our church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me."

___

An account from the Vatican of the pope's response, according to McCarrick:

"The Holy Father has the letter which you entrusted to President Barack Obama, who kindly presented it to him during their recent meeting. He was saddened to know of your illness, and asked me to assure you of his concern and his spiritual closeness. He is particularly grateful for your promise of prayers for him and for the needs of our universal church.

"His Holiness prays that in the days ahead you may be sustained in faith and hope, and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God, our merciful Father. He invokes upon you the consolation and peace promised by the Risen Savior to all who share in His sufferings and trust in His promise of eternal life.

"Commending you and the members of your family to the loving intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of wisdom, comfort and strength in the Lord."

[tiki]

Ted wanted to be pro-abortion and lined up people who could help him justify and vocalize his stance. IOWs, he wanted to get around the rules, like he probably did with anything that didn’t suit his convenience.

[Malesherbes]

I assumed from the first that it was satire.

[RobbyS]

I once heard Bib Dornan(?), the conservative Catholic and congressman from California call McCarrick “the cockroach,” because of the way he scurried about, and because of his evasiveness on doctrine, especially about abortion. He also shares with the insect his ability to taint everything he touches. I would ask how did such a man get to be a prince of the Church, except I know how often the Church has installed such persons in power.

[utahagen]

I believe the vatican’s response to Kennedy's letter was a private one, but that McCarrick, a Kennedy sycophant, deliberately broadcast it by reading it an ostensibly “private” funeral service.

[Raycpa]

This interaction reminds me of the exchange in Mark, Matthew and Luke where a man was trying to gain eternal life by his deeds and Jesus corrects him and tells him the way to eternal life is to follow Jesus.

Ted Kennedy puts all of his life works at the feet of the pope and implicit in his letter is the same question “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?”. The pope’s gentle answer is to point to the savior, Jesus Christ.

The Rich Young Man
16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

17”Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

18”Which ones?” the man inquired.

Jesus replied, “ ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,’[a] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”

20”All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

21Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

[Alex Murphy]

“I want you to know, Your Holiness, that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I’ve worked to welcome the immigrant, fight discrimination and expand access to healthcare and education. I have opposed the death penalty and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and have been the focus of my work as a Unites States Senator. I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field and I will continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone. I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith. I continue to pray for God's blessings on you and on our church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me."

Behind closed doors in the papal library, Obama handed Benedict a letter that Senator Edward Kennedy had asked him to personally deliver to the pontiff. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later told reporters that nobody - not even the President - knew the contents of the sealed missive....The letter, most likely already re-sealed and tucked away in the Vatican archives, was probably just a dying Catholic's request for a papal blessing. In the eyes of the traditionalist wing of the Church, however, Kennedy should have been asking the Pope for forgiveness....
-- After Kennedy's Death: Silence from the Pope

"A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!"

[NYer]

Kennedy's death (and the dog-and-pony show) brought to mind for me a prayer in the old Sarum Missal (English, 14th century) begging for forgiveness for sins we don't know we've committed.

Fascinating! I have never heard of the Sarum Missal. Just returned from Mass. In the Maronite Divine Liturgy, the Intercessions are given after the Invocation of the Holy Spirit (Epiclesis) with the consecrated species on the altar. Immediately following the list of intercessions, the celebrant offers up this prayer:

Remember, O Lord, the faithful departed. Accept this offering on their behalf. They put their hope in Your mercy and compassion and await Your graces. Grant them rest in the bosom of Abraham and call them to be guests in Your kingdom. Grant also to us a peaceful death and blot out our offenses, for no one on earth is without sin except Your only-begotten Son, through whom we hope, along with them, to receive pardon for our sins.
And we pray to You, O Lord.

To which the congregation responds:

Grant them rest, O lord, and forgive all our sins and failings: Those sins we have committed knowingly and those things we have done without knowledge.

The liturgy is ancient ... some of the prayers date back to the 4th century. Is there no equivalent of this prayer in the Novus Ordo?

As for Kennedy, what struck me most about this 10 page letter is that 1) he was able to submit it to the pope via "his" president, a privilege not available to any one of us. He used his "connections". And 2) his purpose in writing it seems to be an acknowledgement of his failings. He speaks of following his Catholic faith in matters of social concern, none of which benefit the slaughtered innocents. It's a twisted logic that has permeated nearly half the Catholic populace, not only here but in other parts of the world as well.

Faced with imminent death, would it ever occur to you to write the pope? It's as if he were trying to justify his actions before God, hoping the pope will 'intercede' on his behalf. Perhaps he was hoping that the pope would condone his work so he could then absolve himself before God, pointing the finger at the pope. Or am I reading too much into this?

[maryz]

Sarum's historically important to English scholars because it's the earliest surviving complete liturgy used in England -- Sarum's the old name for Salisbury. And, no, I don't know of any prayer comparable in the NO.

Re Kennedy's letter (though I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't write it himself, or at least without a great deal of input from Pelosi or someone else), it's interesting that they didn't release the whole thing, just excerpts. Probably just another attempt -- like Pelosi's failed stab at getting a good photo op with the Pope -- to get the Pope to say something (utterly ludicrous) like, "Oh, you liberals do so much good, surely God will overlook that you facilitated the murder of 40,000,000 human beings." So it didn't work again.

[NYer]

Catholic News Agency is running this article today.

Sen. Kennedy’s letter to Pope said he fell short but ‘tried to be a faithful Catholic’

[CharlesWayneCT]

It’s funny how nobody even blinks at the audacity and privilege this represents.

There are millions of Catholics, and many are on death’s door. None of them would ever expect they could get an envoy to take a letter for them to the Pope, much less get an answer.

But Kennedy, since he has money and, well, he’s Kennedy, just assumes that he deserves a personal appeal to the Pope.

And Obama, who would no doubt frown upon being asked to take a letter from a “common folk” had no problem serving as a postal worker for Kennedy.

[roses of sharon]

(Mark Steyn inspired a new tagline for me)

“Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the ‘Kennedy curse,’ a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim — and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn’t, he made all of us complicit in what he’d done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation…

The senator’s actions in the hours and days after emerging from that pond tell us something ugly about Kennedy the man. That he got away with it tells us something ugly about American public life.”

[Alamo-Girl]

If that is the sum of it, then I am disappointed with the response as I would be for such a response from any Christian authority faced with a similar appeal from a terminal member of his assembly, particularly one praising his own accomplishments in the letter.

IMHO, a dying person who sends such a letter probably is not yet at peace, needs assurance of Who Christ IS or perhaps what he must do to prepare for his own graduation into the next life. Something like this maybe:

Be assured that you have my love. Truly, there is nothing you could say or do that would ever make me stop loving you. And I’m only human. God’s love for you is perfect.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39

The above is an assurance and also an exhortation for all of us.

As you prepare for the next step in your journey as a Christian, I urge you to contemplate the meaning of this, that in every moment – in everything you did in this life, in everything you said and in everything you thought – Christ was always there as He will always be there in your next life. Nothing is hidden from Him.

If that truth shames you, troubles you or causes resentment, then I urge you to deal with it in the here and now; pour it out to Him in prayer and/or counsel with your local priest, pastor, spouse or friend. Don’t put it off, for we all must prepare to see ourselves as we truly are and only He knows.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. – I Corinthians 13:12

God’s Name is I AM.

[xzins]

The Pope’s response to Kennedy is thought provoking.

1. It is not written by the Pope, but is instead written by an underling.

2. It is a form letter. You can imagine zillions of these things going out with the addressee being the only change.

If a parishoner empties their heart to me in a letter, and I get someone else to reply, that is an effort to get some degree of separation from that person.

If my response is “Dear ________(fill in blank), So sorry. Pastor’s sorry for you. Get Better. Signed (electronically) The Pastor’s Main Man.

The Pope dissed Teddy.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights!

The Pope dissed Teddy.

Truly, that disappoints me all the more. I cannot imagine a minister turning his back on even the most difficult member of his church.

[Melian]

The parts of the letters released are excerpts. There may have been other parts in which the Pope took him to task for his very public flouting of Church doctrine. And, for that matter, they may have left out the portions Kennedy may have written acknowledging that his stance on abortion was wrong.

Since the Pope signed off with a blessing, I’m wondering if Kennedy did ask forgiveness for that very obvious way he “fell short.”

[wagglebee]

I am inclined to believe that there were more personal portions of both letters which have not been published and it would be highly inappropriate for the Church to release such portions.

We do not know if Kennedy confessed ALL of his sins and repented before his death, but I sincerely hope that he did. However, I also hope that his confessor DOES NOT break the confessional seal simply to satisfy our curiosity. I do know that Eunice and Sargent Shriver had worked over the years to get Kennedy to renounce his pro-death position and it is possible that as he was dying he took his late sister’s wishes to heart.

The Vatican has been VERY deliberate and circumspect in their dealings with Obama and I am confident that there have been messages to Obama and possibly Kennedy that we know nothing about.

[ventana]

You call out McCarrick for what he is, a pansy, a promoter of a false Catholicism. He is a disgrace. V’s wife.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights!

As I said before, my disappointment applies if that was the extent of the reply Kennedy received. IMHO, a person writes that kind of letter (based on the excerpt) when he is not yet at peace.

[wagglebee]

As these are being described as excerpts, the only logical conclusion is that the most personal portions of both letters have not been published.

[Alamo-Girl]

The Kennedy side was clearly represented as an excerpt, but the reply was called "an account of the pope's response."

I'm not sure that means excerpt.