Another View of Ted Kennedy’s Passing

Posted by johnhouk on Aug 30, 2009
 John R. Houk
© August 29, 2009

A few days ago I posted some rather generous (for a Conservative) thoughts about Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing entitled, “Senator Kennedy: What if …?” SlantRight.com is the flagship blog which I post at mostly because my son owns the domain name and he created the site for his Dad – me. I post often at other social blogging networks including a Blogger blog which is a mirror to the flagship.

On some of the social networks I received some pretty harsh language of which some of those utilize very descriptive objections to my generosity. I have attempted to take a stand of not speaking wickedly of the dead even when he was an evil Leftist.

The epithets I read really did not change my mind on Senator Ted Kennedy. As a Christian I thought it better to find something nice to say in this life and that God Almighty would be the Judge in the next life.

I have to tell you though. I was pointed to the Human Life International (HLI) statement release on Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing. The statement was written by Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer who is also the organizations President. I actually know little about HLI except that is pro-life and very Roman Catholic.

Fr. Euteneuer actually delivers a very eloquent statement yet also a very harsh statement about the Senator’s passing.

The reasoning utilized by Fr. Euteneuer has me wondering why the heck my thoughts of Ted Kennedy were generous at all. Read the statement.

JRH 8/29/09 (Hat Tip: Jim: Eye of the Culture Wars)

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Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 04, Number 27
2009-08-28 12:30:13

We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.

Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one's sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were.

It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power.

It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a "great guy behind the scenes" as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy's career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one's political affiliation, if one is only "Catholic" to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud.

As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans.

Sincerely,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International
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 Another View of Ted Kennedy’s Passing
John R. Houk
© August 29, 2009
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Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy

Copyright 2009 - Human Life International Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Human Life International
4 Family Life Lane -- Front Royal, VA 22630 U.S.A.
Phone: (540) 635-7884 Fax: (540) 622-6247
E-mail: hli@hli.org Website: http://www.hli.org/

Did anyone notice the link to the website ends with "666"?
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