Suffer the indignities.
Scholars generally agree that Kennedy’s letter to Pope Benedict XVI, which had remained secret from the time of its delivery July 10 until the time it was read aloud at his burial Saturday, revealed a man eager to explain how he reconciled his public actions with his private beliefs, and hungry for the prayers and support of his church.
Being lied to all his life by priests and Bishops takes it's toll on the deathbed - so long as you had a mother or some interested person to impart the authentic faith to you. Sadly, the chaos is so entrenched here in Massachusetts, he was forced to reach out to the Pope himself for an answer. It's a pathetic situation, really. But, the letter seems to indicate Kennedy realized his soul was in danger and participated in the Sacrament of Confession and he wanted the Pope to know. If the priests and Bishops were deficient in their duty - the penance of those sins will be served by them. That's why the road to hell is paved with their skulls.
“The letters reflect the cordiality and mutual respect that ought to characterize relationships within the Catholic community, even when there are serious differences,’’ said the Rev. Thomas P. Rausch, a professor of Catholic theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angles. And the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a theologian at Notre Dame, said, “The Vatican’s warm reply to the senator’s letter was in striking contrast to the harshly negative rhetoric some of his critics have directed at him, even in death.’’
The only thing more pathetic than the spiritual abuse of Ted Kennedy is watching the gargoyles and cretins use the situation to mislead the multitudes.
How tragic for all concerned.
Since what was read by McCarrick was excerpted, we'll never actually know the content - and Raymond Arroyo reminds us that McCarrick doesn't exactly have a credibility history of delivering accurate messages from the Vatican:
BOSTON, September 1, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - EWTN News Director and host of the popular EWTN program 'The World Over,' Raymond Arroyo, has written a compelling commentary on retired Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's part in Saturday's burial of Senator Ted Kennedy. Arroyo begins by calling McCarrick's reading of portions of Kennedy's letter and a Vatican response a "marvelous bit of political theatre (as so much of Senator Kennedy's funeral was)."
The renowned EWTN show host, who is seen each week in more than 100 million homes around the globe on the Catholic network, then reflects on McCarrick's controversial history.
"First of all, it must be recalled that Cardinal McCarrick has a rather unfortunate history involving the delivery of letters, particularly those from a certain Vatican official by the name of Ratzinger," says Arroyo. "In 2004, when the Bishops of the US were anguishing over whether to allow communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion laws, Cardinal McCarrick concealed a letter from his brother bishops. The missive was from the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then Cardinal (now Pope) Joseph Ratzinger. Had the bishops received the letter intended to help guide their debate, things might have gone very differently. The contents of that letter are still relevant, particularly now when dissenting Catholics have made grandiose pronouncements about what it means to be a Catholic in public life."
Arroyo says that he and other faithful Catholics are "not upset about Chappaquiddick or the huge lapses in the Senator's long and storied life," knowing that forgiveness is possible. "The problem here," he said, "is one of public witness and appearances - the corrupting example."
Arroyo's central thesis is that the story of the Kennedy funeral had less to do with Kennedy than with an attempt to falsely portray what it means to be a Catholic and a Catholic politician. "What most in the media and the public fail to recognize is that this entire spectacle - the Catholic funeral trappings and the wall to wall coverage - was only partially about Ted Kennedy," he wrote. "It was truly about cementing the impression, indeed catechizing the faithful, that one can be a Catholic politician, and so long as you claim to care about the poor, you may licitly ignore the cause of life."
The responsibility of this corrupting example falls not so much with Kennedy as with the prelates who orchestrated the showcase funeral. Says Arroyo: "As a final desperate attempt to stamp the imprimatur of the Pope upon the funeral proceedings, Cardinal McCarrick read what he called the 'Pope's response' to Senator Kennedy. Actually it was a note, very likely from the Secretariat of State. This is the sort of thing any member of laity receives when they send a prayer request or a Christmas card to the Pope. Cardinal McCarrick made it seem as if it had the weight of a new encyclical."
See Arroyo's full commentary on EWTN here.
“The letters reflect the cordiality and mutual respect that ought to characterize relationships within the Catholic community, even when there are serious differences,’’ said the Rev. Thomas P. Rausch, a professor of Catholic theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angles. And the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a theologian at Notre Dame, said, “The Vatican’s warm reply to the senator’s letter was in striking contrast to the harshly negative rhetoric some of his critics have directed at him, even in death.’’
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