October 2009 Print

Funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy

The following is adapted from an e-mail from Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S., from the Oblates of Wisdom Study Center, St. Louis, Missouri, written on August 29, following the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy. Taken from www.lifesitenews.com

 

As a Roman Catholic priest, I feel a duty in conscience today to register my emphatic dissent from a message that was projected around the nation and the globe this morning to millions of viewers and listeners by certain other members of the Roman Catholic clergy.

I refer to this morning’s televised funeral Mass, celebrated in Boston’s Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, for the recently deceased Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. It was a Mass I regard as a scandal comparable to, if not worse than, the scandal given several months ago when the nation’s most prestigious ‘Catholic’ university bestowed an honorary doctorate upon Barack Hussein Obama, the most pro-abortion and ‘pro-gay’ president in U.S. history.

Why, you ask, should a Catholic priest raise such objections to a Catholic funeral for a Catholic legislator? Well, I am afraid this funeral was no ordinary Catholic funeral.

For to those innumerable viewers and listeners of many religions (or none) who were aware of Sen. Kennedy’s public, straightforward, radical, long-standing, and (as far as we know) unrepented defiance of his own Church’s firm teaching about the duty of legislators to protect unborn human life and resist the militant homosexual agenda, this morning’s Mass, concelebrated by several priests, presided over by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, and adorned by a eulogy from the aforesaid U.S. President, effectively communicated a tacit but very clear message: the Church does not really take too seriously her own ‘official’ doctrines on these matters!

I feel impelled, therefore, to make known to anyone willing to read these lines that there are many other representatives of the Catholic Church, such as myself, who take those doctrines very seriously indeed.

How would our Church leaders act if they really did take seriously an official Church position from which a prominent deceased Catholic had publicly dissented?

To answer that question, we need only imagine a situation in which some well-known Catholic legislator had for years supported the Church’s social teaching ‘across the board,’ in regard to human life, marriage, compassion toward the poor and underprivileged, etc., but had then, in old age, lapsed into supporting some ideological position that was strongly opposed not only by the Church, but also by the dominant Western elites.

Suppose, for instance, that he had come to endorse white supremacism or holocaust denial. Now, when the moment for this Catholic legislator’s funeral came, could we imagine for one moment that our cardinals, bishops and other leading clergy, mindful of this man’s sterling and thoroughly orthodox contributions to the common good over so many years in Congress, would ‘compassionately’ overlook his latter-day lapse into racism or anti-Semitism?

Would they agree to give him a free pass in regard to this defect? Would they speak and act as if it were non-existent? Would they grant him a televised funeral Mass in a large basilica, presided over by a cardinal, in which he would be publicly eulogized by both family and public figures?

These questions really answer themselves. Of course none of that would occur! The local bishop might go as far as to allow our hypothetical Catholic racist or anti-Semite a Church funeral, if it was known that (like Senator Kennedy) he had confessed sacramentally to a priest before death.

However, the bishop would allow the use of church property for this funeral on the strict condition that only close personal family and friends would be admitted. All media transmission or even presence during the service itself would surely be forbidden. (It would, of course, be unnecessary for the bishop to ask his fellow bishops and other high Church dignitaries not to attend the service; for all of them, like the bishop himself, would already prefer to be anywhere else on earth than at the funeral of one who had lapsed so unspeakably from society’s ruling canons of acceptable behavior.)

Yes, society’s canons. There, I am afraid, lies the difference between our two scenarios. Is it that official Catholic doctrine is incomparably more opposed to racism and anti-Semitism than it is to abortion and sodomy (as a visitor from Mars might suppose on observing the radically divergent reactions of our bishops to the two respective ex-politicians)? Not at all.

The big difference is simply that most members of the Catholic hierarchy in Western society today–and there are of course a number of honorable exceptions–are lacking in prophetic courage. They are ready and eager to take vigorous and resolute public disciplinary action only against those deviations from Church teaching which also happen to be excoriated by the cultural and media elites.

So it was, in this morning’s funeral Mass, that the homilist, Fr. Mark Hession (pastor of Kennedy’s Cape Cod parish), made his sermon a eulogy about what a wonderful Catholic Christian Ted was, assuring us that we could be “confident” that he is already with Jesus in glory.

So it was that the principal celebrant, Fr. Donald Monan, S.J., Chancellor of Boston College, not only repeatedly told those present–and the whole watching world–that Sen. Kennedy was a man of “faith and prayer,” with a deep devotion to the Eucharist, but also assured us that this “faith and prayer” in private was precisely what inspired and motivated his public policies, so that there was (surprise, surprise) a real integration and unity between his private and public life!

Well, a lot of us didn’t quite manage to see any private-public unity based on Roman Catholic principles. On the contrary, Kennedy’s huge political influence, based on both the family’s prestige and the personal dynamism of this “Lion of the Senate,” if anything made his U-turn on abortion (yes, he was pro-life in his younger days) an even more scandalous counter-witness: a sign of conflict, not union, with that Church to which he professed loyalty.

 

Here are two comments I have just lifted off a Catholic blog:

1. “There’s this big, ‘What if?’” said Catholic author Michael Sean Winters. “If Ted Kennedy had stuck to his pro-life position, would both the (Democratic) party and the country have embraced the abortion on demand policies that we have now? I don’t think so.”

2. “Russell Shaw, former spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that when Kennedy defied the church on issues such as abortion and later, gay marriage, he reinforced a corrosive belief among Catholics that they can simply ignore teachings they don’t agree with.”

I myself remember several years ago a conversation with a young woman who had been brought up Catholic but had recently been ‘born again’ as an Evangelical Protestant. One of the arguments she threw at me was, “Even your Church leaders don’t really believe what Catholics are supposed to believe. Why don’t they excommunicate Ted Kennedy? He’s blatantly 100% pro-choice! Yet they do nothing!”

What could I say to her? And what can I say now, after today’s public scandal? That young lady’s complaint was simply that this man remained a Catholic in good standing. I find I must now complain to you of something worse.

Before the whole world this morning, my fellow Catholic clerics in Boston did not just accord him the “good standing” of a normal, flawed Catholic whose soul we can hope is in Purgatory. Rather, clad in triumphant white vestments instead of penitential violet (never mind the traditional black!), they have placed him on a pedestal, granting him an unofficial ‘instant canonization’!

The Church’s teaching is already abundantly clear that all this is very wrong. So perhaps we can legitimately discern the hand of God’s Providence, which rules all things, in a ‘coincidence’ that suggests a manifestation of God’s grave displeasure at this kind of mockery–injustice masquerading as “pastoral charity.”

In our liturgy, Sunday has begun as I write at the hour of Vespers on Saturday. But the earlier part of this day, August 29, including the time of the Kennedy funeral, was observed by Catholics round the world as the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist.

In normal Masses celebrated today, the biblical account of his martyrdom was read (Mark 6: 17-29.) The parallels are striking: (a) We see two powerful civil authorities; (b) both of them flip-flop in a morally bad direction (Herod originally respected and defended John, and Kennedy originally respected and defended the unborn; (c) both of them abuse their power by authorizing the shedding of innocent blood; and (d) both of them do so under peer-group pressure and at the behest of unrighteous women (then, Herod’s guests, his wife and her daughter; now, the radical feminists and their fellow travellers).

As if that were not enough, the longest Scripture reading in today’s liturgy also grabs our attention. It is prescribed not for the Feast of John the Baptist, but independently, for the Saturday of Week 21, in the ‘Office of Readings.’ This is a part of the daily ‘Liturgy of the Hours’ which is required spiritual reading for us Roman Rite clerics.

And today’s reading just happens to be Jeremiah 7: 1-20, in which the prophet vigorously denounces–guess what?–the hypocrisy of Israel’s religious leaders who proudly identify with the temple and the rites they celebrate within it, while at the same time they are living unrighteously (including “shedding innocent blood,” v. 6) and even “pouring out libations to strange gods” (v. 18). God therefore warns, “my anger and my wrath will pour out upon this place” (v. 20).

Orthodox Catholics will surely ask whether God can be any less angered now by those clerics who today carried out temple rites giving undeserved honor to a legislator who for decade after decade poured out the ‘libations’ of his eloquence, influence and Senate votes in the service of the ‘false gods’ of Planned Parenthood and NARAL–which regularly rewarded him with 100% ratings for his ‘pro-choice’ record.

Enough. If, in your charity, you pray for God to be merciful to the soul of Edward Moore Kennedy, please pray for all of us Catholic priests as well–and be cognizant of the fact that some of us are profoundly indignant at what we saw our brethren doing today

Bishop Decides to Stop Offering Mass Versus Populum

Bishop Edward Slattery of the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma, recently explained his decision to return to the practice of saying Mass ad orientem. In his editorial in the September 2009 issue of Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, he discusses the historical practice:

“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.’ At Mass, the Church keeps vigil, waiting for that return. This single position is called ad orientem, which simply means ‘toward the east.’”

Perhaps most interesting, however, is his analysis of this practice (or lack thereof!) in recent times:

“In the last 40 years...the priest and the people have become accustomed to facing in opposite directions. The priest faces the people while the people face the priest, even though the Eucharistic Prayer is directed to the Father and not to the people. This innovation was introduced after the [Second] Vatican Council, partly to help the people understand the liturgical action of the Mass by allowing them to see what was going on, and partly as an accommodation to contemporary culture where people who exercise authority are expected to face directly the people they serve, like a teacher sitting behind her desk.

“Unfortunately this change had a number of unforeseen and largely negative effects. First of all, it was a serious rupture with the Church’s ancient tradition. Secondly, it can give the appearance that the priest and the people were engaged in a conversation about God, rather than the worship of God. Thirdly, it places an inordinate importance on the personality of the celebrant by placing him on a kind of liturgical stage.

“Even before his election as the successor to St. Peter, Pope Benedict has been urging us to draw upon the ancient liturgical practice of the Church to recover a more authentic Catholic worship. For that reason, I have restored the venerable ad orientem position when I celebrate Mass at the Cathedral.”

While, in the grand scheme of things, this may be a small step, it is nonetheless encouraging after decades of movement in the other direction.

For a more in-depth study of this question, including its historical dimension, see Chapter XIX of the (soon to be republished) book, Pope Paul’s New Mass by Michael Davies.

Requiescant in Pace

While this issue of The Angelus was being published, we received sad news: Two Society priests and the brother of Archbishop Lefebvre left this vale of tears. We commend their souls to your prayers.

Fr. John Peek, an American, was ordained in 1996 and died on September 7. He resided at Queen of Angels priory in Dickinson, Texas.

Fr. Didier Bonneterre, a Frenchman, died on September 15. He was the first rector of the seminary in Albano (Rome). Most recently he was prior of St. Germaine’s in Paris and a member of the General Chapter of the Society. He is the author of the book The Liturgical Movement, published by Angelus Press.

Michel Lefebvre, the youngest brother of Archbishop Lefebvre, also passed away on September 15. He was 90 years old.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Cleaning Up the Curia

Pope Benedict XVI recently appointed and moved several collaborators within the Vatican Secretariat of State. Conservative observers are talking about “essential decisions” or even about “cleaning out the stable,” referring to an opposition inside the Vatican to the Pope. The former Undersecretary for Relations with States, Msgr. Pietro Parolin, has been appointed apostolic nuncio of Venezuela. Archbishop Carlo Viganò, until recently an influential administrator of Vatican diplomats, has been appointed Secretary of the Governatorate of Vatican City.

Archbishop Paolo Sardi has been seen by many as one of the most important curia officials in opposition to the line taken by the Pope; he has been appointed Patron of the Order of the Knights of Malta. For the past 30 years he was responsible for papal speeches. He was thus called “the shaver” because he deleted possible difficulties from papal speeches and made them acceptable for general audiences.

Msgr. Gabriele Caccia, previously Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, has been appointed nuncio to Lebanon. His successor is the US citizen Peter Brian Wells, former personal secretary of the conservative bishop of Tulsa (featured in this month’s issue of Church and World). New as well in the Secretariat of State is the German diplomat Florian Kolfhaus from the diocese of Regensburg.

(Translated and adapted from Kirchliche Umschau.)