Printed below is a letter from another one of those Catholics whom Cardinal O'Malley has labelled angry, vindictive, and divisive. It seems today if Catholic laity step in to defend the faith when the hierarchy won't, we must be prepared to be attacked and vilified. Fr. John Hardon once told me, when I approached him during a home school convention for advice about Les Femmes, that when those with the authority to defend the faith won't, those who don't have the authority must. Such is the situation of laity today. We see our children and grandchildren robbed of the faith by the love affair between the hierarchy and the power brokers. Many bishops have traded their silence for a seat at the table with the elite. Thank you, Donna, for telling the cardinal the truth. It isn't faithful laity who are divisive, and if we are angry, it is the righteous anger of mothers defending their children.
Cardinal O'Malley, you have our prayers. Please be a true shepherd who defends the sheep. There are too many hirelings who are willing to abandon the little lambs to the wolves. Ted Kennedy was indeed a lion, the one described by St. Peter (1 Peter 5:8) "prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour"). He was also a wolf in Catholic clothing attacking the sheep, and many have followed his example to embrace sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. How many souls will be lost because of the public scandal enabled by princes of the Church? Please, Your Eminence, stop providing the Judases cover.
Dear Cardinal O'Malley,
I can hardly think of a more disingenuous description of Senator Edward Kennedy's position than "he did not publically [sic] support Catholic teaching and advocacy on behalf of the unborn." Sen. Kennedy was an active opponent of Catholic teaching on the unborn and other matters, such as same-sex "marriage." He worked tirelessly to preserve legal abortion, earning 100% ratings from NARAL and Planned Parenthood. He voted repeatedly and unfailingly for public funding of abortion and against any restrictions, including a ban on barbarous partial birth abortion. He worked against the Church in supporting legalization of same-sex "marriage," particularly in Massachusetts, and voted to fund embryonic stem cell research. Yet he had no trouble finding Catholic priests, like Frs. Drinan and Monan, to give him aid and cover, while he never had a bishop who was willing to instruct him in the true teaching of the Church and, for the good of his soul, call him to public account for his public sins.
Indeed, the Catholic Church failed Sen. Kennedy during his life and you, Cardinal O'Malley, failed him, his family, and the Church in his death. Do you really believe that the only way you could minister to the Kennedy family was to allow and even preside over that spectacle of a political canonization? You put the credit of the Catholic Church at the service of lies and the legacy of a public apostate who spent nearly 40 years of his political life in open, active hostility to Catholic doctrine on an essential matter, not an issue of prudential judgment. No amount of "aid to the poor" can balance that fact.
Please do not tell me that we must not judge. I am not judging Sen. Kennedy or you on the basis of internal conscience. I am stating objective facts.
God help you, Cardinal O'Malley, God have mercy on Senator Kennedy, and God help the Catholic Church in America.
Donna Bethell
Excellent article!
ReplyDeleteMy personal opinion is that Ted Kennedy merely used the Catholic Church for his own personal gain and was in no way a true Christian. He life is stained with sin after horrible sin. He committed volutary manslaughter being drunk and running his car off a bridge to leave a young woman to drown while he escaped to shore, never attempting to rescue her. Left the scene of the accident and walked back to the Party they had been attending, then went to his room to sleep off his drunkenness fearing if he reported the accident that police officials would give him the breathalyzer test and find him horribly intoxicated. 10 hours later he reported the accident. He was an ardent supporter of abortion, more murder heaped upon murder. He was a ardent adulterer and womanizer. He was even found on one occasion having sex on the floor of a restaurant. No, I would say that Kennedy was not a true Christian, had no real faith and took every opportunity to show it in so many, many ways. I can be reached at mswing@charter.net
Hey ... congrats to you, Mary Ann! I just saw your article on today's LifeSiteNews.com mailing list subscription, and I'd have to say "Amen". Indeed, I myself was wondering why Kennedy was given this when I saw it on CNN, which made me write a blog entry about it on saacdelacroix.blogspot.com, as mentioned earlier. Thank you, God, for people like you in the Arlington Diocese who are willing to defend the Catholic faith and not let the hierarchy slip up on their jobs. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind comments. Historically it has always been the laity bringing the Church back with the leadership of a few saintly reformers like St. Dominic, St. Athanasius, etc. Every heresy that I can think of was started by a priest. We just need to be faithful to our call as soldiers of Christ to defend the faith even when those with the duty to do it won't.
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