Canon Lawyer Dr. Ed Peters of Detroit comments on the issue of having a Mass in a Catholic Church for Senator Ted Kennedy:
Most of Teddy Kennedy's politics, and most of whatever parts of his personal life I knew through the media, angered and sometimes even disgusted me. But my opinions about Teddy's legacy are not at issue in assessing his right to a Catholic funeral under canon law. I trust that my writings on the proper understanding and correct application of 1983 CIC 1184 (the canon regulating the funeral rites to be accorded - - or not, as the case may be - - to Catholics) are reasonably well-known to readers of this blog.* So let's move directly to the canonical question of Kennedy's funeral.
Now, any man with a 100% rating from NARAL (to highlight just the tip of the iceberg of Teddy's decades-long campaign against natural rights) has, to put it mildly, the burden of proof in seeking a Catholic funeral (okay, technically, his executors have the burden of proof, but you see the point) in that notorious pro-aborts seem to be "manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful."
Unless, that is, "they gave some sign of repentance before death." And there is at least some evidence that Ted Kennedy did just that.
Mark Leibovich of the New York Times notes that, among things, "The Rev. Mark Hession, the priest at the Kennedys' parish on the Cape, made regular visits to the Kennedy home this summer and held a private family Mass in the living room every Sunday. Even in his final days, Mr. Kennedy led the family in prayer after the death of his sister Eunice . . . [and when] the senator's condition took a turn Tuesday night a priest, the Rev. Patrick Tarrant of Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, was called to his bedside."
Folks, my reading of the canonical tradition behind Canon 1184** says that those actions suffice as "some signs of repentance", making Ted Kennedy eligible for a Catholic funeral. Of course I wish that Teddy's repentance, if that is what it was, had been more explicit, for the scandal the man left in life was enormous and demanded great atonement in this life (or more dreadfully in the next).
Now, any man with a 100% rating from NARAL (to highlight just the tip of the iceberg of Teddy's decades-long campaign against natural rights) has, to put it mildly, the burden of proof in seeking a Catholic funeral (okay, technically, his executors have the burden of proof, but you see the point) in that notorious pro-aborts seem to be "manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful."
Unless, that is, "they gave some sign of repentance before death." And there is at least some evidence that Ted Kennedy did just that.
Mark Leibovich of the New York Times notes that, among things, "The Rev. Mark Hession, the priest at the Kennedys' parish on the Cape, made regular visits to the Kennedy home this summer and held a private family Mass in the living room every Sunday. Even in his final days, Mr. Kennedy led the family in prayer after the death of his sister Eunice . . . [and when] the senator's condition took a turn Tuesday night a priest, the Rev. Patrick Tarrant of Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, was called to his bedside."
Folks, my reading of the canonical tradition behind Canon 1184** says that those actions suffice as "some signs of repentance", making Ted Kennedy eligible for a Catholic funeral. Of course I wish that Teddy's repentance, if that is what it was, had been more explicit, for the scandal the man left in life was enormous and demanded great atonement in this life (or more dreadfully in the next).
But on the narrow question as to whethere Edward Kennedy is eligible for a Catholic funeral, the information before me suggests that he is, and that a bishop who permits such rites can find support in the Code of Canon Law.
Now, about President Obama giving a eulogy thereat, don't even get me started.
2 comments:
Will all the cumalot concubines throw themselves on the funeral pyre or on O'bamaugh? The mafia fascist molestor league elected Baerpheon O'Phalleigh O'Bamaugh as president with the most Catholic cabinet in history. Just as Kennedy was a hypocrit, Vatican Osservatore Romano editor Vian said on may 18th that Obama "is not a pro-abortion president." What does this prove? That the Vatican message on abortion has only been for politcal purposes. It was used to divide, to encourage Catholics to breed and to encourage non-Catholics to abort out of spite. The Vatican likes the abortion status quo in the USA for this reason. Their purpose is only conquest, not faith. Carolignian Brzezinski spawned Zia al Haq, Khomeini, and bin Laden - breaks up superpowers via Aztlan and Kosovo as per Joel Garreau's Nine Nations. Brzezinski, Buckley and Buchanan winked anti-Semitic votes for Obama, delivered USA to Pope's feudal basket of Bamana Republics. Michael Pfleger and Joe Biden prove Obama is the Pope's boy. Obama is half a Kearney from County Offaly in Ireland. Talal got Pontifical medal as Fatima mandates Catholic-Muslim union against Jews (Francis Johnson, Great Sign, 1979, p. 126), Catholic Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott decision. John Wilkes Booth, Tammany Hall and Joe McCarthy were Catholics. Now Catholic majority Supreme Court. Catholics Palmisano, Grasso, Damato, Langone, Mozilo, Ranieri, Dioguardi, Palmieri destroyed American industry. Subprime construction mobsters had hookers deliver mortgages to banks. McCain's Keeting started it all. They find American cars too advanced to use or their mechanics to fix. Ellis Island Popeholes brought in FDR. Their slovenly, anti-intellectual work ethic produces vacuous, casuistrous blather and a tangle of contradictory regulations. Their clubhouse purges provided praetorian training for corporate misgovernance. NYC top drop outs: Hispanic 32%, Black 25%, Italian 20%. NYC top illegals: Ecuadorean, Italian, Polish. Ate glis-glis but blamed plague on others, now lettuce coli. Their bigotry most encouraged terror yet they reap most security funds. Rabbi circumcises lower, Pope upper brain. Tort explosion by glib casuistry. Hollywood Joe Kennedy had Bing Crosby proselytise. Bazelya 1992 case proves PLO-IRA-KLA links. Our enemy is the Bru666elles Sineurabia Axis and the only answer is alliance with Israel and India. They killed six million Jews, a million Serbs, half a million freemasons, a quarter million Gypsies, they guided the slaughter of Assyrians and Armenians, and promoted the art of genocide throughout the world. They had no qualms hijacking American policy in Vietnam or Balkans to papal ends, but when American interests opposed tose of the papacy in Iraq, they showed their true fangs (Frum, Unpatriotic Conservatives). They could not countenance a Mormon President! They broke their own coalition with their foreign adventures and with their unwillingness to extend home and school subsidies to other races, as evidenced by their missing their own Obama moment when they could have elected a Kenyan pope. Every American boom has been caused by an Evangelical Revival and every major Depression by the domination of new Catholic immigrants. See for example George Marlin's history of the conservative party in New York or Paul Johnson's Modern Times, extolling the rise of Carolignianism of Adenauer, de Gaulle, and Gaspieri, forgetting that Hitler, too, was Carolignian and a Catholic altar boy.
Um...couldn't have said it better myself, Jon. "Glis glis"? Hmmm. Never thought of it that way.
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