Patches Gets Married in a Tent

Howie Carr has a rather colorful description of the sad deterioration of the Kennedy family, HERE.

Another Kennedy wedding on the Cape today — big night for package stores and state police sobriety checkpoints. But somehow it doesn’t seem the same — so many things seem to be missing from the traditional Kennedy wedding.

For starters, a Catholic church. Didn’t the Kennedys used to get married in Catholic churches? Caroline at Our Lady of Victory in Centreville, Maria Shriver at St. Francis Xavier in Hyannis?

Now Patches gets hitched at the compound. Forget “celebrating” Mass, these nuptials will be “officiated” by moonbat Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Bill Clinton must not have been available.

If we don't laugh, we'll cry.

Really?

What a sad development for Boston Irish Catholics.

We can't blame this one on Episcopal misfeasance. Bishop Tobin invited Patrick to numerous come to Jesus meetings. Privately and publicly.

I'm not even sure why this really bothers me. It's better than having prelates Sacramentally endorse defiance and leading hundreds of thousands of Catholics into an abyss. Maybe it's because I had secretly hoped they could get it through their thick Irish skulls and this is just another step in the wrong direction.

Apparently they're all fighting over Rose and Joe's house on the compound. Ted donated it to host think tanks? The family is appalled and concerned about the infringements upon their heritage and history. The place is a ghost house. Bobby's children feel the Kennedy Library has snubbed their father. Isn't the Kennedy Library another blueprint of Jack Connors'? He's really got the Midas touch doesn't he.

I didn't think anything could top sitting between two bitches listening to John Unni, but the cocktail hour must have been something else, huh?

God help them.

Jesus Help Patrick Kennedy

May Patrick Kennedy find his way to Romans 8

Low poll numbers for Patches and the emotional aftermath of his father's death, Kennedy decides not to run for re-election.

It's almost surreal Ted Kennedy's death seemed to spark major crumbling of the political foundation.

This was sad:

"Illness took the life of my most cherished mentor and confidant, my ultimate source of spirit and strength," he said.

The death of a significant person in our personal lives can take the wind out of our sails for a couple of years. Your animus is crushed by the hole in your life. Your life takes a dramatic turn. We dig in our heels to avoid the turn.

If you are not careful, you can surrender control over the momentum of your life to it.

How does anyone survive life's curve balls if they let another human being be their ultimate source of spirit and strength?


Christ experienced every kind of suffering. The death of John the Baptist and even his own death at the hands of people whose souls He came to save.

I pray the day never comes when I'm so caught up in a storm that my soul can't make its way to immerse itself in Christ to be refreshed and restored.

Ultimately, controlling the purpose of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist to confirm you in your rebellion against doctrine is spiritual suicide.

When laity and priests and Bishops actively participate in leading a rebellion against doctrine, it is spiritual homicide.

In the story of Christ's, the substitution Christ's physical body with the image of the Church. At various points in our lives we take a role as one of the characters that surrounded Him.

Sometimes good. Sometimes, not so much.

It' a long road from "what is truth" to "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit".

I pray Patrick Kennedy, who has had a difficult life, gets there.

Romans 8


Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword?

As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, 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

Patrick Kennedy Trying to Put the Communion Dust Up "to Rest"

Is that right.

Well then, he ought to lay off the inaccurate statements.

“These are personal issues of faith for me,’’ he said after a forum about health care at Brown University.

Actually, no. The beauty of telling things to journalists is that they'll make private things public. Patrick used the journalists to represent himself as the arbiter of official positions in the Catholic Faith. Further, he gave the private letter from the Bishop about those "personal issues", to the journalist.

“I’m not going to indulge in this debate anymore. It’s really for me about what my constituents are most interested in now, and that is getting a health care bill passed that helps improve their lives.’’

But, it's clear the overwhelming majority of Patrick's constituents oppose handing the welfare of our health over to the government. It's also untruthful to say, it's going to improve any of our lives because the quality of medicine everyone is going to get will impair and threaten our lives - not to mention bankrupting hospitals and perhaps even financially imploding the American empire.

In fact, today, six Massachusetts hospitals have announced that they're suing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts because "healthcare reform" is threatening their solvency.

And, the poorest of the poor are the people being robbed of medical care.

Six Massachusetts hospitals are suing the state, saying they were shortchanged by the 2006 health care law.

The hospitals claim the state violated a law requiring health care providers be adequately reimbursed for caring for Medicaid and Medicare patients.

The six are known as "disproportionate share hospitals" because at least 63 percent of their patients are covered by public insurance.

Intellectual dishonesty has a way of metastasizing until it eventually robs you of everything. Patrick has consumed himself.

When a consumed soul starts to beckon the multitudes down into the hole with you,it becomes the responsibility of loving and caring people to make sure the errors are corrected in the public square.

It's too late to keep the issues "private". The horse is out of the barn.

Patrick Kennedy: Don't fail Daddy's Legacy

The son of the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy warned the state’s U.S. Senate candidates yesterday not to apply an abortion “litmus test” that might stall the universal health care his father devoted much of his career to passing.

Don't fail Daddy's legacy.


The "legacy" is enshrined forevermore in the minds of the uncatechized who watched abortion advocates at the pulpit of Boston shrine canonize "the legacy" while the Cardinal sat by lending his imprimatur to the show.

The Cardinal sat on the sidelines nodding his approval with, of all things, a memorial card of Rose Kennedy's in his pocket saying that the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone would be losing their faith.

Much of what is noble in the politics and work of the Kennedys had its origins in the bedrock of the faith of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. As a young woman she had a profound experience of God’s love that transformed her life. She strove to communicate that faith to her large clan. Since the time of her funeral Mass I have kept her memorial prayer card, inscribed with Rose Kennedy’s own words:

"If God were to take away all His blessings, health, physical fitness, wealth, intelligence, and leave me but one gift, I would ask for faith – for with faith in Him and His goodness, mercy, love for me, and belief in everlasting life, I believe I could suffer the loss of my other gifts and still be happy – trustful, leaving all to His inscrutable Providence."

I guess so long as he has the deposit of faith, he thinks he isn't culpable for sponsoring a show misleading the faithful from their "faith". Good luck to him with that.

For the rest of us, using Rose Kennedy's memorial card to abstain him from his act of memorializing Kennedys "legacy" as the path to redemption is an oxymoron.

Faith is the act of believing in the tenets of your religion even when you yourself don't see the wisdom of them. You don't need faith for something that has already been proven to you beyond a shadow of a doubt. Faith is a surrender to trust when you can't find tangible answers and have reservations or doubt.


Many times in Christ's ministry He came upon people who asked him for miracles and Christ posed questions to them that led to a public profession of their faith in front of the crowds. On one occasion, He told a gentile woman who asked him for a miracle that you don't give that which is holy to the dogs. Whatever this gentile woman was doing in her personal life that was scandalous, Christ did not permit the situation to lead the crowd to any misunderstanding about the requirements of faith and redemption. The woman acknowledged the state of her soul and she also testified that even in her unworthiness, she was struggling and trying to catch the crumbs of grace from the Table of the Lord. After Christ baited people into public professions of faith, He'd say "Your faith has saved you".

Some people are on this earth to extinguish Light and some are holding the Light high. Poor Patrick Kennedy is left with the struggles of finding his way to the Light and he's still going the wrong way. God help him.

“We cannot allow us to miss this opportunity because some people are drawing a litmus test to this bill,” said U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) “For anybody running for especially my dad’s seat to condition their support on an issue as to whether they’re going to vote for it or against it . . . to me misses my dad’s legacy of health care for all.”

If prolifers having the litmus test at killing children as the antithesis of healthcare and it's throwing a monkey wrench into Ted's "legacy", so be it.

Here in Massachusetts, Daddy's legacy not only leads poor people to kill their own children, now, they won't even have any teeth.

We're not edified.


As I've said before - and I repeat here again - for the last 40 years, the abortion industry and the victims of wayward priests confirming people in their sins have been proselytizing that pro-lifers keep missing the boat on all the good things abortionists and their supporters accomplish when we focus on "one issue" instead of the "common good". Why are they suddenly obsessed about the subject matter of abortion?

Bernadin's seamless garment has been stripped from their hubris.

Naughty us, insist on advocating the constitutional rights of victims being burned alive, decapitated, or having their limbs ripped from their body with a vaccuum until they bleed to death. You'll pardon us for saying "Freedom of choice" my eye.

Pelosi said she doubted the anti-abortion amendment would survive the House-Senate conference committee, which will craft the final bill.

The House passed it. Now comes the Senate that will pass their own bill. Then, it goes to committee who snips and cuts and puts out the final version. Then, it goes back to the House and Senate. Then, the President signs it.

Everyone is on their side of the line in the sand.


It's going to be a feisty fight on the battlefield. Pony up the prayer warriors and the internet where we can debunk the Kennedys and Obamas "legacy" and promote the "legacy" of Christ.

Bishop Tobin's Latest Correspondence to Patrick Kennedy

Patrick Kennedy's Bishop, +Thomas J. Tobin has released a public letter that to me, indicates Kennedy has refused to go meet with him and iron out the wrinkles in his formation as a Catholic.

The poor man has got to go a long way to unravel the damage done by his father, who realized his errors on his death bed - and Cardinal O'Malley, who opened up the Sanctuary of the Catholic Church to give the appearance that a lifetime of assisting in 50 million murders of children is no obstacle to salvation.

The letter is a testimony to a Bishop who cares whether our eternal destination is Heaven or Hell.

I still have a great deal of trouble as a parent ever imagining myself groveling for absolution for errors that led millions to spiritual chaos and deaths - and leaving my own children in the dark to repeat my errors.

I just can't imagine doing it.

I don't know about you, but if I were the recipient of the letter, it sure would look to me as if the Bishop was firing a very serious warning shot across my bow. It's a sensible, firm but direct letter.

Dear Congressman Kennedy:

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” (Congressman Patrick Kennedy)

Since our recent correspondence has been rather public, I hope you don’t mind if I share a few reflections about your practice of the faith in this public forum. I usually wouldn’t do that – that is speak about someone’s faith in a public setting – but in our well-documented exchange of letters about health care and abortion, it has emerged as an issue. I also share these words publicly with the thought that they might be instructive to other Catholics, including those in prominent positions of leadership.

For the moment I’d like to set aside the discussion of health care reform, as important and relevant as it is, and focus on one statement contained in your letter of October 29, 2009, in which you write, “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” That sentence certainly caught my attention and deserves a public response, lest it go unchallenged and lead others to believe it’s true. And it raises an important question: What does it mean to be a Catholic?

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.

For example, the “Code of Canon Law” says, “Lay persons are bound by an obligation and possess the right to acquire a knowledge of Christian doctrine adapted to their capacity and condition so that they can live in accord with that doctrine.” (Canon 229, #1)

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says this: “Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles, ‘He who hears you, hears me,’ the faithful receive with docility the teaching and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.” (#87)

Or consider this statement of the Church: “It would be a mistake to confuse the proper autonomy exercised by Catholics in political life with the claim of a principle that prescinds from the moral and social teaching of the Church.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2002)

There’s lots of canonical and theological verbiage there, Congressman, but what it means is that if you don’t accept the teachings of the Church your communion with the Church is flawed, or in your own words, makes you “less of a Catholic.”

But let’s get down to a more practical question; let’s approach it this way: What does it mean, really, to be a Catholic? After all, being a Catholic has to mean something, right?

Well, in simple terms – and here I refer only to those more visible, structural elements of Church membership – being a Catholic means that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine, obligations and expectations. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church, especially on essential matters of faith and morals; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.

Congressman, I’m not sure whether or not you fulfill the basic requirements of being a Catholic, so let me ask: Do you accept the teachings of the Church on essential matters of faith and morals, including our stance on abortion? Do you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish? Do you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly? Do you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially?

In your letter you say that you “embrace your faith.” Terrific. But if you don’t fulfill the basic requirements of membership, what is it exactly that makes you a Catholic? Your baptism as an infant? Your family ties? Your cultural heritage?

Your letter also says that your faith “acknowledges the existence of an imperfect humanity.” Absolutely true. But in confronting your rejection of the Church’s teaching, we’re not dealing just with “an imperfect humanity” – as we do when we wrestle with sins such as anger, pride, greed, impurity or dishonesty. We all struggle with those things, and often fail.

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

Congressman Kennedy, I write these words not to embarrass you or to judge the state of your conscience or soul. That’s ultimately between you and God. But your description of your relationship with the Church is now a matter of public record, and it needs to be challenged. I invite you, as your bishop and brother in Christ, to enter into a sincere process of discernment, conversion and repentance. It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic “profile in courage,” especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children. And if I can ever be of assistance as you travel the road of faith, I would be honored and happy to do so.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas J. Tobin

Bishop of Providence

From his lips to God's ears.

***UPDATE

Kennedy responds.

The readers digest version is, Kennedy wants to publicly distort the teachings of the Church and publicly claim his actions are consistent with Catholicism and it's the Bishops protecting the life of children acting inconsistent--but keep any discussions about his version of the faith private matters between him and his Bishop.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rep. Patrick Kennedy says he finds it “very disconcerting” that Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin will not agree to keep private a discussion about Kennedy’s faith.

Talking with reporters Tuesday in response to an open letter to Kennedy published Monday on the Web site of the diocesan newspaper the Rhode Island Catholic, the congressman said he initially agreed to meet with the bishop with the understanding that whatever he chose to bring up with him would be kept private.

He said the planned meeting, which had been set for Thursday, was postponed because the bishop would not stand by a promise to keep the meeting private.

Bishop won't play if I meet with you, you shut up and I'll control the spin of what is Catholic and what isn't?

After all the private and public interactions, Kennedy voted against a provision preventing federal funding of abortion on Saturday. The jig is up.

Kennedy said Tuesday that he has a pastor, and “I have my sacraments through that pastor. I don’t want anyone hounding my pastor. I have sought the sacraments of reconciliation and communion and all the rest.”

When a reporter asked asked Kennedy: “Does all of this hurt you? Do you feel wounded?” Kennedy responded: “I think it’s unfortunate. I’m not going to engage this anymore.”

But when asked if he had been threatened with denial of communion or other sanctions, Kennedy said those were subjects he planned to discuss with the bishop. “Ideally, he will keep it between us.”

Kennedy said he initially criticized the U.S. Catholic bishops because they said that they would oppose the health-care reform bills pending in Congress if they did not explicitly deny federal funding for abortion.

“What I disagreed with them is that if they didn’t get their way, they weren’t going to support overall health-care reform,” he said. “That’s something I felt very strongly was destructive to the process.”

Keeping the status of Kennedy's communion "private matters" didn't serve his father, it hasn't served him, it doesn't serve Catholics in political life following the Kennedys so-called Catholic leadership in matters pertaining to abortion -- and it definitely is not serving the Catholics watching the show.

If one of your children is repeatedly drinking and driving and you as a parent keep the disposition "a private matter" while the rest of your children look on, in the absence of taking the keys of the car away and speaking about the errors and dangers, your lack of action is constructive permission. You're teaching them.

If your children take the crayons to your walls and you don't get off your fanny to take the crayons away and correct the errors - you keep it a private conversation a generation or two later - your grandchildren and their children and their children's children will never know social boundaries and discipline. They're going to be lacking invitations and friends. Someday, they'll be taking a crayon to their prison cell walls.

If the Lord has given you His children to form, there's a responsibility that comes with it. Forty years of silence in the public square has destroyed generations of Kennedys and the Catholics being led away by the pied pipers.

It's time to take a different tack.

Archbishop Dolan's Piece Rejected at the New York Times

I read about the NYT rejecting +Dolan's op-ed but hadn't read it until this evening.

It's a corker.

He indexes several examples of anti-Catholicism in the New York Times of anti-Catholicism within the last few weeks like their story about 40 rabbis caught sexually abusing children in one small sect of the Jewish faith and by gum, no whip of of frenzy that the word rabbi is synonymous with pedophile. Or, the ludicrous NYT pitch that after year of Anglicans petitioning Rome for union with the Catholic Church, it was all a sinister lure to collapse competition. And, of course, my favorite and yours (and apparently Archbishop Dolan's) the anti-Catholic screeds of sourpuss Maureen Dowd which +Dolan charitably refers to as "intemperate and scurrilous".

* In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.

True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.

I love this Bishop!

And, he mentions the malice-tinged rant of malcontent Patrick Kennedy against the Catholic Church.

Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday.

Lots of times in our history grouches have circled the wagons. The Lord is comforted by the depth of love for HIm and the Church that inspires public testimony.

Viva Christo Rey!

Patrick Kennedy Memorializes the Legacy of Cardinal O'Malley's Train Wreck

Kennedy Spars with Church on Abortion

The late Senator Edward M. Kennedy seemed to mend his differences with the Catholic Church just before his death. But less than two months later, his youngest son has plunged into a firestorm of controversy with the church.

Why would anyone leave their own children to live out the remainder of their lives in a legacy of spiritual chaos?

I just can't wrap my head around that kind of selfishness.

Ted Kennedy was given the precious gift of having months of spiritual direction and counseling of Catholic priests at his bedside.

I just can 't imagine wasting precious time and energy authoring a letter to your Pope about your accomplishments, orchestrating the President of the United States to hand deliver it while leaving your own family ignorant about your epiphany.

Kennedy, speaking in support of a public option for a proposed universal health care plan, told Catholic News Service in an article posted Thursday that he found it perplexing that the church would oppose the health insurance plan.

“I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time, where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we’re caring and giving health care to the human person - that right now we have 50 million people who are uninsured,’’ Kennedy said.

He added: “You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people life-saving health care? I thought they were prolife? If the church is prolife, then they ought to be for health care reform, because it’s going to provide health care that are going to keep people alive

Bishop Tobin stepped right up to the plate:

Tobin had outlined his concerns in a Sept. 21 letter he sent to the Rhode Island congressional delegation, saying he could not support any legislation “that diminishes human dignity or threatens the right to life.’’

Yesterday, he was more direct, saying that Kennedy’s comments were “irresponsible and ignorant of the facts.’’

“But the congressman is correct in stating that he ‘can’t understand,’ ’’ Tobin said. “He got that part right.’’

The bishop explained the church’s stance, saying that while the church supports health care overhaul, “we are adamantly opposed to health care legislation that threatens the life of unborn children, requires taxpayers to pay for abortion, rations health care, or compromises the conscience of individuals.

“Congressman Kennedy continues to be a disappointment to the Catholic Church and to the citizens of the state of Rhode Island,’’ the bishop said. “I believe the congressman owes us an apology for his irresponsible comments. It is my fervent hope and prayer that he will find a way to provide morally responsible leadership for our state.’’

That seemed to shut him up:

A Kennedy spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

And, of course, no story about the Kennedys is complete without the incompetence of the Boston Cathedra:

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, of the Boston diocese, also participated in the senator’s funeral, in spite of criticism, and explained later that “we will stop the practice of abortion by changing the law, and we will be successful in changing the law if we change people’s hearts.’’

“We will not change hearts by turning away from people in their time of need and when they are experiencing grief of loss,’’ O’Malley said.

Tell that to the dozens of falsely accused priests in Boston but that is a story for another time.

Everyone knows that turning away people when they experience grief of loss is the antithesis of the Catholic Church. Everyone supports outreach to this beautiful family.

The Cardinal is not facing his permission and participation in permitting the Sanctuary to be held hostage by family members and the President to put the official stamp of approval of the Catholics on the policies Ted Kennedy worked on his whole life as the road to salvation.


My own children may not like what I'm called to teach them. More often than not, there's a dust up when I won't give them permission to do things I know are not good for their well-being. Responding to their losses and grief in life have nothing at all to do with the responsibilities of teaching right from wrong.

Responsible parents wouldn't teach their own children about moral sexuality and host a party for Planned Parenthood to espouse the heavenly nature of sleeping around while they pray quietly in a corner or bring people who are not their husbands and wives home and sleep with them in front of their children.

The Cardinal is kidding himself about what went awry. He just can't seem to face his own duplicity. Patrick Kennedy memorializes the legacy of Cardinal O'Malley's train wreck.

The comments on the story seem to indicate that the Kennedys have lost their patina, even with Boston Globe readers.

This one, to me, hits the nail on the head:

The only difference between abortion and murder is time.

Both abortion and murder seem to be okay with Kennedys