Late Edward Kennedy's Letter to Pope Read at Graveside

Source: AFP

The late Edward Kennedy's letter to Pope read at graveside

Article from: Agence France-Presse
August 30, 2009 11:15am

THE voice of Edward Kennedy was heard from beyond the grave when a recent letter he wrote to Pope Benedict XVI was read out at the ceremony to lay him to rest. The letter from Senator Kennedy, who died late on Tuesday, was hand delivered to the pontiff by President Barack Obama during a July 10 meeting at the Vatican.

But neither the details of the letter nor the Pope's reply had been known until late on Saturday when, in the gathering dusk at Virginia's Arlington cemetery, the correspondence was read out for the first time. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick - Washington's Archbishop Emeritus, who presided over the burial here just across the river from the US capital - quoted from the two letters to ``commemorate the faith of Ted Kennedy and the warm and paternal spirit'' of Pope Benedict.

The letter from Senator Kennedy, a devout Catholic, asked first for blessing and prayer in his struggle with brain cancer. "The disease is taking its toll on me,'' admitted Senator Kennedy frankly, saying he was "preparing for the next passage of life.'' Senator Kennedy wrote that he ``always tried to be a faithful Catholic... and though I have fallen short through human failings, I've never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith.''

- snip -

The senator - a life-long liberal Democrat and champion of Obama's health reform efforts - said he wanted the pope to know how even though he was so ill, he was still ``committed to do everything (he could) to achieve access to health care for everyone''. "This has been the political cause of my life,'' Senator Kennedy wrote. "I continue to pray for God's blessings on you and on our church. And would be most thankful for your prayers for me.''

Read more: http://wl.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26002254-954,00.html

:popcorn:

A fortnight later a reply arrived from the Vatican, Cardinal McCarrick told the family and friends gathered around Senator Kennedy's burial site.

The Vatican said the Pope ``was saddened to know of your illness and asked me to assure you of his concern and his spiritual closeness''.

Pope Benedict asked that Senator Kennedy might ``be sustained in faith and hope and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God''.

``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,'' read the letter.

and you have to admire the Senator's devotion to his religion.

Interesting, too, that a representative of the Holy Father responded. Not the Holy Father. I suppose that's protocol, but it struck me as cold, especially given the intimate and confessional tone of Teddy's letter.

That same lovely Roman Catholic church, with all its trapping and elegant prayers, with all its million-dollar buildings and costly vestments, was the same church that denied Teddy Kennedy the sacrament of Communion, and, of course, Confession, because he was divorced.

Imagine the comfort such rituals would have brought him as he faced his final struggle. As it is, as he believes it, he died not in a State of Grace, one that he would have achieved by making a good Confession and receiving the Host, but in a state of sin, perhaps alleviated when he was given what used to be called the Last Rites, but which have now been retitled "The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick" because it sounded, you know, so depressing.

(They renamed the Holy Ghost, too, because Holy Spirit was more user-friendly, I suppose.)

The incredible hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church, along with all the other organized religions, once again jumps out and shocks me. I don't know why I'm continually surprised, but it gets me every damn time..................

until he died. Many Catholics are divorced then receive annulments. They are then married to their new spouse in the Church and are then reentitled to the sacraments. If what you're saying is true, he would not have even had a funeral mass in that church. Surely, he received an annulment at some later time, then did everything else correctly.

and, yes, he was unable to receive the Sacrament. He could still be buried by the Church - but, as a divorced man, no, he could not receive Communion.

If he'd obtained an annulment - which would have been easy for him, given his wealth - his children would then have been deemed illegitimate in the eyes of the Church. I suspect that's what kept him from doing so. Also, his ex-wife was a devout Catholic, and no one will ever know what that might have done to her.

So, Senator Kennedy was stuck.

And that's how it works..............................

Just one of many links on the net you can Google and find more:

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2009/aug/29/ted-kennedys-catholicism-source-comfort-conflict/?breakingnews

Excerpt:
Kennedy remarried in the 1990s, and the public learned then that he’d been granted an annulment after he was seen accepting Communion at his mother’s funeral. Joan later said that Kennedy requested the annulment, which she did not oppose, on grounds that his marriage vow to be faithful had not been honestly made...

I listened to a couple of RC priests at a local Catholic law school talking about how he'd been forbidden the sacraments because of the divorce and just assumed it was true.

I should have known better than to believe priests.

Then he had the complete comfort of his religion at the end. That's good.

Thank you for this..................

:toast:

in an article on the net that Robert Kennedy's son Joseph got an annulment (after 12 years of marriage and two children) but the church reversed it when the ex-wife protested the decision.
So, maybe it was Joseph that you heard about not being allowed to take communion (?)

It was long enough ago that, yes, it could have been young Joe, now that you mention it. I was still teaching, so that's at least two years ago, maybe three.

That was a messy one - he got the annulment, as I recall, without telling her. She wasn't even Catholic, but an angry woman is an angry woman, and she was pissed, so she went after him. It was an interesting story, since no one had ever heard of an annulment, especially when it was a highly-placed (read "loaded") family, being publicly reversed.

I'm just not sure, and I should have kept my mouth shut, but thank you for the clarification. Damn priests - they just keep letting me down............................

:toast:

Non-Catholics don't understand that influential Catholics get annulments to enable them to re-marry and it doesn't mean much otherwise.

She took the annulment very literally--her marriage never counted and her kids were illegitimate. That is a heck of a thing for a religious institution to declare without even consulting her.

Having married in the church as a non-Catholic, she had to promise not to use birth control, except abstinence or "rhythm," and to raise her kids Catholic. Then, and only then, the Church would give her marriage.

She kept her end of the bargain, the Church took back its part arbitrarily.

I can see her reaction, even if she had not been cheated on by him.

she went after it, eh?

I'm gonna guess that the children were raised Catholic, so that might have had an impact on her, with them. But, she isn't even Catholic, so what difference would it matter if the marriage were annulled or not?

Hell hath no fury, or so they say.

That's about the nastiest thing I've heard in quite a while.

Thank you very much - greatly appreciated, and I'm enjoying this story..........................................

Thanks for the info, and that is a bit of a relief.

I don't believe that is true about the kids being considered illegitimate. That was one of the big questions I had over my annulment. The consistent answer was no, they are not considered illegitimate.

As easy as it is to get an annulment, I still just don't understand why he would not have sought one. I just can't imagine given he came from such a devout Catholic upbringing. Maybe there were deeper reasons possibly his conduct when he was younger and he tended to punish himself? I don't know.

Plenty of love and comfort to be shared, just between us humans.

to believe that death isn't really death. That your loved ones are waiting for you somewhere. That life is eternal.

That those guys in the fancy outfits have some sort of "in" with Ceiling Cat.

Beats me. I was raised in it, and had absolutely no problem shaking it at the age of eighteen when I went off to school.....................

The Pope broke or sprained his hand or arm recently and he couldn't even put his two hands together to pray, not sure of the date, it could have been his hand was out of commission during the time that President Obama took the letter to the Pope and the Pope responded to the letter -- maybe that is why someone else wrote the letter in response to him.

in the letter, but, the fact that it was third person singular - not even dictated by the Pope, but, rather, a summary of what he said - leads me to think otherwise.

But, that's a very nice thing to think, and I applaud you for it........................

The Pope broke or sprained his hand or arm recently and he couldn't even put his two hands together to pray, not sure of the date, it could have been his hand was out of commission during the time that President Obama took the letter to the Pope and the Pope responded to the letter -- maybe that is why someone else wrote the letter in response to him.

and said Mass. He had the last rites, too. This was all on the news, where the (Irish brogued) priest who had been visitin him daily and saying Mass and last rites in Kennedy's home was interviewd.

or soul rather than the current understanding as the non-physical remains of a dead person. For example, Dickens referred to the Ghost of Christmas Past, but Scrooge addresses the Ghost as Spirit.

English is a living language, and prayers must shift as the language shifts.

For comparison - here is an early translation of the Lord's Prayer:

Oure fadir that art in heuenes, halewid be thi name;
thi kyngdoom come to; be thi wille don `in erthe as in heuene;
yyue to vs this dai oure `breed ouer othir substaunce;
and foryyue to vs oure dettis, as we foryyuen to oure dettouris; and lede vs not in to temptacioun,
but delyuere vs fro yuel. Amen.

and one from the Good News Bible:

Our Father in heaven: May your name be kept holy,
May your Kingdom come, May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need;
Forgive us the wrongs that we have done,
As we forgive the wrongs that others have done us;
Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One

It had to do with "Catholic conscience" in his health care support or something like that. Anyone know what it was?

"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."

Complete quote. No, I don't know what it means.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIWVFqn99zgCCl4O6l0i6oESYJdwD9ACUN6G0

don't want to perform abortions, provide birth control, that kind of stuff.

Surprised?

Surprised? Yes and no, about equal. Politics and religion, as always, make strange bedfellows.

regardless of how they view the process? I an understand requiring pharmacists to provide legal medications since they are at a remove, but not forcing people to do abortions.

Reading this in public strikes me as rather crass and self-serving, especially these lines:

"Cardinal Theodore McCarrick... quoted from the two letters to 'commemorate the faith of Ted Kennedy and the warm and paternal spirit of Pope Benedict'."

"Senator Kennedy wrote... I've never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith."

First, they must have left out the "warm and paternal" part, because what I read was cold, bureaucratic, mumbo-jumbo.

Second, as many Catholics are reconsidering their allegiance to Cardinal McCarrick's floundering institution and stampeding for the exits, this public reading comes across as a bumbling attempt to take advantage of a famous man's burial to score a few PR points.

Tacky.

he's always been a total publicity whore. And that letter had to have been Senator Kennedy's idea - my understanding is that a lot of that service was his plan.

Didn't you love how someone replied "on behalf of the Holy Father"?

I do so despise organized religion, so - forgive me - holier than thou...............................

When I turned 18, or around there, I became an agnostic for many years. It is only now that I understand that my Catholic faith is what made me a liberal and it is what made the Kennedy family famous liberals as well. Christ tells us that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. This is something that Teddy believed in and it is what I believe.

Catholics are turning to the Republican party over the abortion issue. I don't care how much abortion is made an wedge issue. This singular issue when compared to the unjust war, the lies, the constant opposition to the working-man, and historic anti-immigrant stance means that I will NEVER vote Republican. I will never be a "Know-nothing." I understand how you feel but I will not give up my faith.

Keep your faith Tangerine and it may just sustain your spirit.

and the kindness of strangers. I have faith that people are good, but some are bad, and I have faith in the sure and certain knowledge that no matter how carefully we plan, things don't always turn out to our satisfaction.

Beyond that, having had a remarkable Jesuit education, I have absolutely no use for any kind of faith in any kind of supernatural being, but if it works for you, that's good...................................

the graveside service. It may be that Ted had discussed it with Vicki and either she chose not to pass that on to the cardinal or he or they chose not to pass that on to the general public.

There seemed to be no reason for the letter or for reading it at the burial.

And the reply didn't come from the Pope; it was from a secretary or something.

It was bizarre.

I think Catholic affinity for the Democratic party has many roots but surely was further soldified in the 60s with the Kennedy rise to power, up until such time as Roe v Wade. From then on, the Catholic church became more and more forthright in its attacks on Democratic politicians, while the Democratic party became solidified on the issue of choice. For many liberal Catholics indoctrinated in anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-abortion values, the result was confusing or painful. The conservative Catholics ascended in the Catholic church, the liberation theologists were pushed out or down (and shot by trainees of our own government), and preaching from the pulpit attacked the politicians of the left. Surely Ted Kennedy was a pivotal figure in all of this, especially since his brothers' legacy predated Roe-v-Wade (and to my knowledge, they never had expressed a position on it).

Of the practicing Catholics that I know, the conservative ones would certainly immediately bring up abortion if I were to mention Ted Kennedy to them. Heck, one of my close relatives who is a nonpracticing 'lapsed' Catholic raises it as an issue any time the word 'Democrat' is mentioned. Parochial schools give several weeks of indoctrination against abortion to kids at about age 11 or 12, before most even have a real concept of the complexities of pregnancy or adult responsibilities.

The reason for the letter is that this was a thorn in his side, I'd guess, and that it remained a subject of discussion or questioning among the devout branches of the family.

I am sure Senator Kennedy found the letter a great comfort

Given his comments on health care (among other things) I expect we'll be hearing "How dare Ted Kennedy politicize his own funeral!" any day now.

:crazy:

Right wing, hate radio, on Monday will be spewing Garbage 24/7/365

beck will be dancing on Ted's grave.

Correction: Children of an annulled marriage are NOT considered by the church (or by law) to be illegitimate. That is a "grave misconception" to use the Archdiocese of Detroit's words.

http://www.stdanielclarkston.org/annulmnt.htm - for more information.

Additional info: I heard that several right wing blogs were making lots of noise about the Pope not responding to Kennedy's letter. It was apparently known by some that Kennedy had a letter delivered by Obama. The RW blogs and media were saying the lack of a response by the pope showed that Kennedy was in trouble with his church, on the outs etc. etc. I wondered if Vicki had the the Cardinal read the excerpts from the exchange of letters in order to put out those flames.