TWILIGHT ZONE

***“Lion of the Senate” Dies:  Ted Kennedy’s moniker, “lion of the Senate,” is a fitting label. Like the lions in the Roman coliseum, Kennedy ripped Christianity limb from limb. He did it metaphorically in many cases, but the mangled bodies of millions of unborn children testify to the literal consequences of his beastliness as well. Contempt for truth and the faith he claimed also make him the poster boy for hypocrisy in action. The scandal of his life continued after death thanks to clerics who allow public extravaganza funerals for rich, elitist Catholics no matter how evil. Cardinal James Hickey did it with the real author of Roe v. Wade, Justice William Brennan. Bishop William Lori, now head of the Bridgeport Diocese, a D.C. auxiliary at the time, sat in the bishop’s chair at St. Matthew’s Cathedral paying silent honor to the architect of abortion on demand. 

And so with Kennedy. Did he repent in the end? He received last rights, not the same thing. If he died failing to confess his mortal sins of promoting child-killing and sodomy and all his sacrilegious Communions, he is in hell - hard words but the truth. He helped plan his funeral a near canonization and political event from abortion cheer-leader in chief Obama’s eulogy to Kennedy’s eleven-year-old grandson offering a prayer for liberal health care. The funeral itself casts doubt on the likelihood that Kennedy repented. He engaged in political theatre to the end.

Fr. John Hardon often said during his life that only humble people get into heaven. There was nothing humble about this sendoff.  God help the man if worldly accolades were on his mind as he prepared to face his Maker!

***One More Nail in Kennedy’s Coffin: According to gay activist Marc Solomon writing in Bay Windows a few days after Kennedy’s death Ted played a significant, but secret, role deep-sixing the 2007 true marriage referendum in Massachusetts. The bill was on the verge of approval when Solomon got a call. "'Could you get me a list of your targets?' one of Kennedy's key staffers finally asked me.’Don't tell anyone I'm asking you for this,' he said. He meant it, and I didn't." Kennedy personally influenced enough senators to defeat the referendum denying voters of Massachusetts the right to decide the issue at the ballot box. The self-proclaimed “champion of the people” would do anything to advance his liberal agenda whether it meant calumny against nominees seeking Senate consent or sneaky back-room deals. Kennedy often did the dirty in the dark – like Judas who left the Last Supper. “And it was night.”

***Enablers of Scandal Fill the Hierarchy:  Perhaps the saddest part of Kennedy’s funeral was betrayal by the clergy. Catholics with any moral sense must be outraged; from start to finish it was a scandalous affair. Eulogies are not permitted at Catholic funerals. Kennedy received several with Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s apparent stamp of approval. With three former presidents present as well as members of the entertainment glitterati including tenor Placido Domingo and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the day resembled a Democratic fundraiser more than a liturgical service. Kennedy’s son thanked the musicians and singers for their “performances.” Exactly right: the funeral was the political performance of the season.

***Gravesite Bombshell: Letters Revealed
The politicking continued as Kennedy’s body was lowered into the grave. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, himself a cafeteria Catholic, read bits from Kennedy’s self-serving letter to the pope. [I thank God I am not as other men… “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... I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic…I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith” except, of course the ones with which I disagreed like abortion, sodomy, birth control, marriage, adultery, and the other seven deadly sins.] McCarrick also read “excerpts” from the Vatican’s pro-forma response(not signed by the pope)including, “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” Was there anything else urging Kennedy to publicly recant? Who knows? McCarrick has no problem misrepresenting the contents of Vatican letters.

***Oh those nasty “boorish” critics! Those who say a quiet, family affair should have been required rather than the scandalous public spectacle are being called “boorish.” Talking about sin and scandal is so outré; we must honor the last knight of Camelot (only sibling, Jean Kennedy, survives).  Faithful Catholics reply that scandal leads others into sin and public scandal must be addressed publicly. High profile media funerals for those who flaunt Church doctrine teach that what the Church says doesn’t really matter. One can be publicly pro-abortion, support same-sex marriage, and “obstinately persist in manifest grave sin” without consequence. The clergy who enabled this sham perpetuate and magnify the scandal, Cardinal O’Malley certainly and also Fr. Bryan Hehir of the Boston Archdiocese who, when asked if Kennedy should have a Catholic funeral replied, “He was a regular communicant at Mass in parishes in Washington and Boston, and he is entitled to, and welcome to, a Catholic burial.” In other words, sacrilegious Communion by pro-abortion Catholic politicians (which has been condemned by Vatican officials) entitles one to, not just a Catholic burial, but a public pageant that implies unofficial canonization. The Kennedy funeral indicated once more the loss of faith among many U.S. clerics. The Church in Boston squandered a “teaching moment.” Rather than urge men to holiness of life, the spectacle taught that mortal sin is not a big a deal after all. Cardinal O’Malley trashed the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the lives of the martyr saints who chose death rather than commit one mortal sin. Did no one tell Ted Kennedy that atonement for public sins requires public repentance? If excerpts from his letter to the pope reflect the whole, he lied to the end. He did not, in fact “respect the fundamental teachings” of the faith. Not an iota of evidence exists that he repented his role in killing the innocent. Poor Ted was apparently surrounded by ear ticklers as he prepared for Judgment. He went to Mass often in the months before he died, but continued to champion evil, straddling the fence to the end, claiming the Church while undermining her doctrine. Remember what Jesus said about the lukewarm?

***The Kings of the World: The American hierarchy love to honor the “kings” of the world who hate the Catholic Church and her teachings. Like the pathetic bench of bishops in Henry VIII’s England, such clerics trade the faith for human respect. In England, however, opposition earned a martyr’s crown. In America the only loss for defending truth is worldly honors and rubbing shoulders with the elite. Nevertheless, it seems no scandal is too great for some American bishops to wink at it. God help the teachers on Judgment Day!

***Ted’s Sis set the Real Catholic Example One Kennedy deserves praise. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died a few weeks before her brother, gave an example of what the Kennedy family could have been.  Founder of Special Olympics and a pro-life stalwart, Eunice spent her life promoting respect for the unborn and those with disabilities. May she rest in peace and pray her cafeteria Catholic relatives back into the true faith. Her funeral was a quiet, private affair.

***The Bishops School for Scandal: There must be a contest among American bishops to see who can commit the biggest scandals. O’Malley wins for this quarter, but some runners-up deserve special mention. In an interview with the dissent rag, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), Bishop Michael Sheehan, a crony of Cardinal Bernardin [which pretty much says it all.], who will live in infamy as the seminary rector of serial abuser Rudy Kos, criticized his outspoken brethren for protesting Obama at Notre Dame. He said the majority of bishops support his position of “bridge-building.” [Some bishops love building bridges to nowhere!] As for murdering the innocent, Sheehan said, “I think we don’t want to isolate ourselves from the rest of America by our strong views on abortion.” [Huh? What about Jesus’ call to be a sign of contradiction?] Albuquerque Catholics say the bishop lets dissent flourish, just like his hero Bernardin did.

In another pathetic performance, Bishop Thomas Tobin reviewed homosexual Archbishop Robert Weakland’s self-serving autobiography. While the bishop gently took his brother to task, he vigorously chided Weakland’s foes saying, “It strikes me that critics of Archbishop Weakland should be at least a little restrained in their umbrage, for after all there are many redeeming qualities of the Archbishop’s life and ministry.” [One could say the same about the Pharisees. They tithed after all.] Bishop Tobin’s statement might be reasonable if Weakland publicly repented, but he hasn’t. In fact, he’s using his book promotion to call into question Church doctrine. In a recent New York Times interview Weakland pontificated, “If we say our God is an all-loving god, how do you explain that at any given time probably 400 million living on the planet at one time would be gay? Are the religions of the world, as does Catholicism, saying to those hundreds of millions of people, you have to pass your whole life without any physical, genital expression of that love?” [What an outrageous thought – no perverted sex? Could God possibly be so mean?]  AB Weakland wants the Church to approve sodomy and same-sex marriage.

***From the Twilight before the Dawn File
Take hope. Good news is coming out of a few dioceses. First, Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa restored the ad orientem position to all his Masses at the cathedral parish. In the September diocesan magazine, the bishop wrote, “When we study the most ancient liturgical practices of the Church, we find that the priest and the people faced in the same direction, usually toward the east, in the expectation that when Christ returns, He will return ‘from the east.’…By facing in the same direction, the posture of the celebrant and the congregation make explicit the fact that we journey together to God. Priest and people are on this pilgrimage together.” We pray that Tulsa’s priests will imitate their bishop.

Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend issued new norms in July calling for tabernacles in the diocese to be “prominently located in the sanctuary of the church, along the central axis behind the main altar ... at an elevated, open location in the apse area, or in another central place in the sanctuary that is equally conspicuous.”

He also wrote, “The place of the tabernacle in our church should reflect our faith in the real presence of Christ, and should always be guided by church documents.” A big thank you to these shepherds.

of health care workers and the public. They include     Archishops John Naumann of Kansas City, KS, and Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, MO. The two bishops issued a joint statement emphasizing the Catholic principle of subsidiarity and warning that the current plan “would diminish the protection of human life and dignity and shift our health care costs and delivery to a centralized government bureaucracy. Centralization carries the risk of a loss of personal responsibility, reduction in personalized care for the sick and an expanded bureaucracy that in the end leads to higher costs.”  Well said! Thank you, Your Excellencies.

***Final word on Kennedy’s hypocrisy: Readers may remember that when Kerry left the Senate in 2004 to run for president, Massachusetts had a Republican governor. To prevent him from naming a Republican to finish out Kerry’s term, the legislature voted to require a special election within five months to fill the seat with no interim replacement. Now, however, with a Democratic governor, Kennedy asked that the legislature reverse itself by passing a new law to let the governor fill his seat immediately. Are we surprised? Just change the rules every election to favor liberals. For Kennedy it was pure, partisan, political game-playing to the end! Some things never change. [Hmmm….How do politics play at the pearly gates we wonder?]

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