Kennedy’s Catholic legacy
Now that the senator is laid to rest, after days of saturation coverage by an adoring and sometimes reverential media, a few thoughts….
What the secular media and some religious media left out or distorted in their reporting of Kennedy’s life and impact was his Catholic legacy.
Well, there is no need to speak ill of the dead, but there is also no reason to avoid speaking honestly about his record. And there are, clearly, some serious issues with Kennedy’s record when seen in the light of authentic, official Catholic social doctrine.
The most obvious is that of abortion, as most readers surely know. What some people might not know is that Kennedy did not always have a 100% rating with NARAL. Back in 1971 he wrote a letter to Catholic League member Tom Dennelly stating, “Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized. When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”
By the late 1970s he, like many other Democrats, had completely changed his position.
At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience.”
That has given cover to decades of Catholic politicians proclaiming that right and defending that position, even against the outpouring of corrections of Church teaching and clarifications issued by Catholic bishops. It laid the groundwork on which Governor Mario Cuomo would build a shelter for abortion-supporting Catholic politicians in his infamous 1984 speech at the University of Notre Dame.
At Kennedy’s funeral, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick talked about the letter the senator sent to Pope Benedict, and that has generated a lot of interest and continuing confusion about Catholics and conscience.
AÂ snip from that letter:
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.
This begs several questions, starting what it means to be a faithful Catholic, frankly. And what the difference is between believing and respecting the fundamental teachings of the faith and disobeying them publicly, with tremendous consequences.
Not to judge the senator in retrospect but to clarify the matter for Catholics engaged in debates over social policy and the role of religiously informed voices in the public square……these questions should be addressed.
