Another Victim of Americanism

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The heresy of Americanism, which is one of the fundamental building blocks of Modernism, has led so many Catholics, especially those in public life, in the United States of America to subordinate the truths of the Faith to the exigencies of electoral politics, viewing the Church through the filters of pluralism rather than viewing the world through the eyes of the Holy Faith.

The late Joseph Patrick Kennedy, whose youngest son, Edward Moore Kennedy, died early yesterday morning, Wednesday, August 26, 2009, was intent on seeing one of his sons rise to become become the first Catholic President of the United States of America. Vital to this effort, of course, was convincing just enough Protestant voters in key swing states that Catholics were loyal first to the Constitution of the United States of America, accepting the its premises of the separation of Church and State and religious liberty just as readily as Protestants themselves. This was one of the key goals of the address that Joseph Kennedy's oldest surviving son, United States Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, gave to a group of Protestant religious broadcasters in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1960, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary:

I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."

And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died--when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches--when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom--and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey--but no one knows whether they were Catholic or not. For there was no religious test at the Alamo.

I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition--to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress--on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)--instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.

I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts--why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their Presidency to Protestants and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France--and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.

But let me stress again that these are my views--for contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does not speak for me.

Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith--nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.

If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.

But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency--practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution . . . so help me God. (Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.)

 

The American bishops had indeed endorsed the thesis of "separation of Church and State" in 1948, thereby making a mockery of the consistent condemnation of this falsehood by one pope after another, including by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it.

 

The American bishops did not consider this reaffirmation of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church to bind their consciences. Neither did then Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Neither did Senator Kennedy's youngest sibling, the recently deceased United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. Neither do the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The Americanist bishops and the Kennedys and the conciliar "pontiffs" have embraced the falsehoods of separation of Church and State and religious liberty as they have rejected the necessity of restoring the Social Reign of Christ the King by seeking the conversion of men and their nations to the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Pope Pius XI explained in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that the "quotations" rejected by John F. Kennedy and the Americanist Catholic bishops of his day--and by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in our own day--do indeed bind the consciences of all men at all times without any exception or qualification whatsoever:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

"It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements" means that it is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements, you Americanists and conciliarists out there in cyberspace. The Kennedys and their Americanist enablers in the Catholic hierarchy before the "Second" Vatican Council were contemptuous of these teachings and pronouncements. So are the conciliarists today, starting with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism).

Then Senator John F. Kennedy's speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association was an important harbinger of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's "official" "reconciliation" with the principles of Modernity. The speech also revealed that John F. Kennedy had no understanding of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, and that he was not interested in learning anything about this teaching.

An analysis of Kennedy's view of religion, written by an author who was favorably disposed to the "Second" Vatican Council, provides some interesting insights in this regard:

Though Kennedy’s Houston speech surprised some Catholics, it was consistent with his upbringing and cultural influences.  Catholics may have considered Kennedy one of their own, but he was closer in his views and lifestyle to Boston Brahmins than ethnic Catholics.  His biographers have consistently chronicled his detachment from his Catholic faith.  Groomed for secular success from an early age, Kennedy learned the faith from his mother but watched his playboy millionaire father routinely flout its precepts.  He did not grow up in the Catholic ghetto or attend Catholic schools, except for one year.  He was a self-described “Harvard man” who, according to his chief speechwriter, did not care “a whit for theology.”  Sorensen once said that in 11 years of working together, Kennedy had never shared his views on man’s relation to God.  That would not have surprised Boston Archbishop and Kennedy family friend Richard Cardinal Cushing, who openly acknowledged that Kennedy was never very religious.  Nor would it have surprised Jackie Kennedy, who reportedly told journalist Arthur Krock that the religious controversy surrounding her husband mystified her because, she said, “Jack is such a poor Catholic.” 

Many biographers suggest that Kennedy’s religious views were essentially Deist, like those of Jefferson, the founding father he quoted so often.  Kennedy believed in God and attended Mass regularly, but he was more attracted to the American ideal of the independent, self-made man than the Catholic ideal of the humble, obedient servant of God.  As Lawrence Fuchs notes in his book, John F. Kennedy and American Catholicism (Meredith, 1967), many of Kennedy’s favorite writers had been zealous anti-Catholics and one of his favorite poems, William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus,” reads more like an agnostic manifesto than a Christian one.  In the poem, Henley thanks “whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul,” and concludes with these lines: “It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” 

Kennedy’s political rhetoric sometimes echoed these sentiments.  He frequently sang the praises of liberalism, which he defined as “faith in man’s ability … reason and judgment” and he identified the human mind as “the source of our invention and our ideas.”  Rather than a personal God intimately involved in and concerned with the affairs of his creatures, Kennedy’s God kept his distance from the world he had created.  As Kennedy told one audience: “Our problems are manmade – therefore they can be solved by man.  And man can be as big as he wants.  No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”  In Kennedy’s theology, there seemed to be little emphasis on the fallen world, or original sin, or the radical reliance on God’s mercy and grace that has always been a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy. 

 

Kennedy’s innovation was not merely his Deist ideas about God.  After all, several of America’s founding fathers appear to have held similar views as they promoted a civil religion that draws upon religious faith to shore up public morality.  Kennedy’s rhetoric marked a departure from this notion of public religion and the beginning of the end of the public consensus about the role of religion in American democracy.  His exaltation of man as the measure of all things and reason as the key to a perfected world left little role for the God invoked in America’s founding documents.  When America’s founding fathers asserted self-evident truths about the equal rights and dignity of all people, and entrusted their grand experiment in democratic rule to divine Providence, they were making theological claims compatible with the traditional Christian and Jewish conception of the human person and his relationship with God.  Those claims were not exhaustive; they did not enumerate the many and varied views that Americans held about God and man.  But they conformed to the basic tenets of Judeo-Christian tradition and advanced a vision that most Americans accepted as true.  Kennedy’s rhetoric diverged from that framework, and the strict compartmentalization between faith and politics that he championed contrasted with the traditional Christian ideal of a public servant whose faith guides and informs his political decisions. (Colleen Carroll Campbell, The Enduring Costs of John F. Kennedy's Compromise)

 

Although the author has little understanding of the fact that the heretical views of God held by the American founding fathers were no basis for anything other than the social disorder and rank statism that are upon us at this time, she did accurately assess the state of John F. Kennedy's semi-Pelagianism, the belief that the human being is more or less self-redemptive and can "solve" whatever problem comes his way, a belief that is at the heart of the naturalistic ideology of liberalism. John F. Kennedy's liberalism, much like that of his recently decently younger brother Edward Moore Kennedy, viewed Catholic teaching in a selective manner, a key component of Americanism, something Pope Leo XIII made clear in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899:

But, beloved son, in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state.

In the apostolic letters concerning the constitution of states, addressed by us to the bishops of the whole Church, we discussed this point at length; and there set forth the difference existing between the Church, which is a divine society, and all other social human organizations which depend simply on free will and choice of men.

It is well, then, to particularly direct attention to the opinion which serves as the argument in behalf of this greater liberty sought for and recommended to Catholics.

It is alleged that now the Vatican decree concerning the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff having been proclaimed that nothing further on that score can give any solicitude, and accordingly, since that has been safeguarded and put beyond question a wider and freer field both for thought and action lies open to each one. But such reasoning is evidently faulty, since, if we are to come to any conclusion from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, it should rather be that no one should wish to depart from it, and moreover that the minds of all being leavened and directed thereby, greater security from private error would be enjoyed by all. And further, those who avail themselves of such a way of reasoning seem to depart seriously from the over-ruling wisdom of the Most High-which wisdom, since it was pleased to set forth by most solemn decision the authority and supreme teaching rights of this Apostolic See-willed that decision precisely in order to safeguard the minds of the Church's children from the dangers of these present times.

These dangers, viz., the confounding of license with liberty, the passion for discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject, the assumed right to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject and to set them forth in print to the world, have so wrapped minds in darkness that there is now a greater need of the Church's teaching office than ever before, lest people become unmindful both of conscience and of duty.

We, indeed, have no thought of rejecting everything that modern industry and study has produced; so far from it that we welcome to the patrimony of truth and to an ever-widening scope of public well-being whatsoever helps toward the progress of learning and virtue. Yet all this, to be of any solid benefit, nay, to have a real existence and growth, can only be on the condition of recognizing the wisdom and authority of the Church.

 

The Kennedys, harbingers of conciliarism, sought counsel from leading conciliar revolutionaries as early as 1964 to position themselves to be able to support various moral evils such as abortion and contraception while laying claim to remaining "Catholics" in "good standing" nevertheless:

In some cases, church leaders actually started providing "cover" for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. 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."

The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book "The Birth of Bioethics" (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.

 

Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."

Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: "The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion." (WSJ.com - Opinion: How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma.)

 

That's quite a cast of dissenting Catholics, is it not? "Father Death," Robert Drinan. Charles Curran, the supporter of contraception. Richard McCormick, the support of the false moral theology known as proportionalism, the belief that a preponderance of "good" motives and extenuating circumstances can make an otherwise objective moral evil act licit to pursue. The noted dissenter Joseph Fuchs. Quite a cast of characters, gathered to help the Kennedy clan support baby-killing under cover of the civil law. And there are still priests and presbyters catering to these people who are unrepentant in their support of one moral evil after another. Some of priests and presbyters indemnified Edward Moore Kennedy right until the point of his death and, sadly, will continue to do so for years after his death. This is nothing other than the legacy of Americanism and its progeny, conciliarism.

Although it was another nine years before United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy would embrace a woman's "right" to "choose" to kill her baby in the aftermath of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973, the last surviving son of Joseph Patrick and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy became a full-throated supporter of baby-killing and, ultimately, of the "right" of persons of the same gender engaged in perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments to "marry." Edward Moore Kennedy spent the last thirty-six years of his life, therefore, as a champion of the very thing that caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity and that caused His Most Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with those Seven Swords of Sorrow: Sin. Sin the basis of personal and social disorder. But is the promotion of sin under cover of law that is Edward Moore Kennedy's most enduring "legacy," such as it is.

Conciliarists, of course, cannot mention such "harsh" realities in the aftermath of a political "giant's" death. Thus it is that the conciliar "archbishop" of Boston, Sean "Cardinal' O'Malley, who said six months ago that the crimes of the Third Reich against adherents of the Talmud were the worst in human history (see No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide), issued the following statement following Edward Moore Kennedy's death from brain cancer yesterday:

Today we mourn the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and we extend our heartfelt prayers and sincere condolences to his wife Victoria and their children, Kara, Edward, Patrick, Curran and Caroline. Senator Kennedy was blessed with a dedicated and loving family who stood by his side, particularly during the past year as he faced his illness with courage, dignity and strength.

We join with his colleagues in Congress and the people of Massachusetts in reflecting on his life and his commitment to public service. For nearly half a century, Senator Kennedy was often a champion for the poor, the less fortunate and those seeking a better life. Across Massachusetts and the nation, his legacy will be carried on through the lives of those he served.

We pray for the repose of his soul and that his family finds comfort and consolation in this difficult time. (Cardinal O'Malley mourns Kennedy death)

 

A champion of the poor, the less fortunate and those seeking a better life? How was this so? Edward Moore Kennedy believed in the enslavement of the poor and the less fortunate to one failed government subsidy program after another in full violation of the Natural Law principle of subsidiarity enunciated so clearly by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931. And please tell me who are more poor and who are more unfortunate than the innocent preborn whose lives were treated with such utter contempt by Edward Moore Kennedy once he abandoned his pro-life position in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton? Edward Moore Kennedy championed the right of women to to have their innocent preborn babies suctioned to death or burned to death or carved up to death from the first moment of conception to the day of their birth. It was all a matter of "choice" for Edward Moore Kennedy. Just another day at the conciliar office for Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley, O.F.M., Cap.

Yes, the big, brave Sean O'Malley went after the easy target, Bishop Richard Williamson, to cater to the ancient enemies of the Catholic Church. This conciliar reprobate, who has contempt for the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, believes that a man who has promoted things repugnant to the peace and happiness of eternity has left us a "legacy" worth continuing. The Catholic Church begs to differ with Sean O'Malley:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

 

Alas, no one has a "right" to "choose" to do that which is evil, no less to sanction evil under cover of the civil law or to promote it in every aspect of popular culture. One has the ability to choose to do evil. One has no moral right to do so. A Catholic in public life has the obligation to defend the binding nature of the precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to the authority of His Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication without any deviation or exception or qualification whatsoever in any circumstance.

No Catholic can "separate" his allegedly "private" religious beliefs from his public duties. As I pointed out at the New York State Right to Life Party convention in 1986 when giving my acceptance address following my nomination to be the party's candidate for lieutenant governor of the State of New York:

"Can you imagine someone saying that he is personally opposed to racism or anti-Semitism or to the killing of blacks or Jews, but that he would never 'impose' his beliefs upon others? The 'mainstream media' would condemn such absurd assertions with great delight. Ah, it is permissible, though, for a Catholic such as Governor Mario Matthew Cuomo to say that he is 'personally opposed" to abortion, but that he cannot 'impose' his beliefs upon the people of the State of New York. Our Lord really meant it when he said that 'He who is ashamed Me of My doctrine before men, I will be ashamed of before My Father in Heaven.'" We must call men such as Mario Matthew Cuomo to account for their betrayal of the eternal truths of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law."

 

Pope Leo XIII, faced with similar absurdities at the end of the Nineteenth Century, dealt with the sophistry of the "I'm personally opposed" approach to social evils in one simple paragraph in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

Hence, lest concord be broken by rash charges, let this be understood by all, that the integrity of Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God. Further, it is unlawful to follow one line of conduct in private life and another in public, respecting privately the authority of the Church, but publicly rejecting it; for this would amount to joining together good and evil, and to putting man in conflict with himself; whereas he ought always to be consistent, and never in the least point nor in any condition of life to swerve from Christian virtue.

 

As expected, however, many in the "mainstream" media associated with the counterfeit church of conciliarism are reporting the late Edward Moore "Teddy" Kennedy's support for baby-killing and contraception and Federal funding of fetal tissue experimentation and the "right" of those engaged in perversity to "marry" in light of how he allegedly "stood firmly" on the side of the "church" on such issues "immigration reform to the minimum wage:"

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who died late Aug. 25 at the age of 77, stood firmly on the side of the Catholic Church on a wide range of issues from immigration reform to the minimum wage during his 47 years as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

But the youngest son of one of the nation's most famous Catholic families ran into criticism from leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church for his stand on abortion. He opposed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, supported Roe v. Wade and was a chief sponsor of legislation to limit protests outside abortion clinics and to permit the use of federal funds for research projects using fetal tissue. (CNS STORY: Ted Kennedy, longtime senator)

 

The apostasies of conciliarism are on full display in these two brief paragraphs.

Edward Moore Kennedy is portrayed as having "stood firmly on the side of the Catholic Church on a wide range of issues from immigration reform to the minimum wage," thus convey to the reader that the Catholic Church has immutable "views" on immigration reform and the minimum wage. She does not. These are matters about which men of good will can disagree legitimately as there is nothing received from the hand of God about the nature of "immigration reform," especially given the fact that nations have the right as found in the Natural Law to secure their borders and to enact and enforce just laws to regulation migration through those borders.

Similarly, the Catholic Church does indeed insist that workers be paid a living wage (which is not a monetary amount but a sum that will enable a breadwinner, usually the father of a family, to support his wife and children without forcing his wife go to work), the Church does not condemn those of her children who might disagree as to what constitutes a just wage at a given point in time. These are maters of prudential judgment wherein fallen creatures attempt to apply the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in the concrete circumstances of life. Men of good will are free to take a variety of positions on these issues as long as they keep in mind the greater good of souls and as long as they attempt to be faithful to the just bounds described by our true popes in their social encyclical letters, which emphasized the fact that heads of households with families are to be paid differently than those who are unmarried or who are married without children.

The Catholic News Service report, however, makes it appear as though there is a moral equivalency between these issues on which men of good will may disagree and that of baby-killing under cover of the civil law. There is no such moral equivalency. Very few of those in the world of the counterfeit church of conciliarism seem capable of realizing that abortion (willful murder) is one of the four crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. One cannot support the direct, intentional taking of any innocent human life, including preborn human life, and remain a member of the Catholic Church in good standing. No nation that permits the slaughter of the innocent preborn will be "blessed" by the true God of Revelation, and nations that permit such a genocide of babies will find itself suffering from economic crises that require it to encourage immigration in order to make up for the deficit in its own population caused by legal sanctioning and widespread use of contraception and by the carnage produced by its abortuaries.

One can support abortion and remain a member in good standing of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, where the medicine of solemn excommunication is rarely used as a remedial means to cure defections from the Faith represented by the support of crimes that carry with them an automatic, self-imposed penalty of excommunication. Imagine the good that could have done for the late Edward Moore Kennedy's immortal soul had the conciliar officials had the true Charity for his soul, for which Our Blessed Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem, by solemnly pronouncing that Kennedy that Kennedy had excommunicated himself by his pertinacious support of baby-killing under cover of the civil law.

Conciliar officials tolerated Edward Moore Kennedy's scandalous defiance of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural during his life. They said nothing as Kennedy used the weight of his committee assignments in the United States Senate to promote candidates for the Federal judiciary who, like himself, support baby-killing and other moral evils under cover of the civil law. Kennedy practiced some of ugliest, meanest forms of demagoguery imaginable to denounce candidates for the Federal judiciary who were suspected of wanting to reverse the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, outdoing himself in this demagoguery moments after then President Ronald Wilson Reagan nominated Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert H. Bork to succeed the retiring Associate Justice Lewis Powell in 1987:

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens. (Kennedy And Bork.)

 

I can't recall any conciliar official criticizing Edward Moore Kennedy for this demagogic remark. Kennedy got a free pass from conciliar officials most of the time. He even served as an "extraordinary minister" when administering what purports to be the Most Precious Blood in the Novus Ordo service the day after his nephew, the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., died on Friday, July 16, 1999. That's how much "respect" conciliar officials have for what they assert, albeit falsely, is the Most Precious Blood of Our Divine Redeemer. A man who supports and promotes the very evils that caused Our Lord to be put to death on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins (a truth rejected by "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the chairman of the conciliar "episcopal" conference in Germany, who has yet to be publicly rebuked or corrected by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in the past one hundred thirty-eight days since Zollitsch uttered this blasphemous heresy on Holy Saturday, April 11, 2009, of all days), the greatest crime in the human history by the way, "Cardinal" O'Malley, is considered fit enough to handle a chalice containing what is believed to be the Divine Redeemer's Most Precious Blood.

Conciliar officials said nothing as Edward Moore Kennedy used his own prestige and his family number and his family's money to support pro-abortion candidates for public office across the nation. Kennedy endorsed Walter Mondale and his own home state's Michael Dukakis, who had introduced the bill in the Massachusetts State Senate, which went unopposed by Kennedy family's bought and paid for "house priest," Richard Cardinal Cushing (see Cushing's Children), to legalize the sale of contraceptives to married couples, and William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., and his own fellow Catholic apostate, John F. Kerry, and, of course, very famously, then United States Senator Barack Hussein Obama, pro-aborts each and every one of them.

Did Senator Kennedy use the time that God gave him to prepare for his death to renounce publicly the evils that he supported so boldly, so defiantly? No. Edward Moore Kennedy used his time to support the likes of Barack Hussein Obama. His last public letter, dated July 2, 2009, was to the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, to have the Massachusetts state legislature change the law so that his successor could be selected by the governor without waiting for a special election despite the fact that the current law, which specifies such an election, was put in place in 2004 partly at Kennedy's behest to prevent then Governor Mitt Romney from naming a successor to United States Senator John F. Kerry in the event that that hapless Catholic pro-abort defeated the hapless statist named George Walker Bush for the presidency that year. That's what was on Kennedy's mind as he neared his death: making sure that another pro-abort like himself was selected to take his place in the United States Senate. Not thought, at least not expressed publicly, of regret concerning his championing of one moral evil after another.

Edward Moore Kennedy used the might of his accumulated seniority, second only to the thirty-third degree Mason Robert Byrd, who had ousted him as the Senate Majority Whip in the aftermath of Kennedy's Chappaquiddick debacle that resulted in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne on July 18, 1969, to push and push and push for the promotion of abortion and "rights" for those steeped in unrepentant acts of moral perversity. And he remained in "good standing" in the conciliar structures until the very end despite all of this, something that would not have been the case if he had expressed the views about the crimes of the Third Reich that were expressed by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X. That is the only truly unforgivable crime in the mind of conciliar officials that causes one to be disciplined and publicly humiliated.

Perhaps it is the case that the late Senator Edward Moore Kennedy has left behind a note to be read at his "Mass of Christian Burial" to abjure his support for baby-killing and to urge Caesar Obamus to reverse course himself, pleading also with his children and grandchildren to become defenders of the inviolability of all innocent life from the first moment of conception through all subsequent stages until natural death. Or perhaps he left instructions for the following note, written in 1971, to be read by way of making reparation for the evil that he did in public life by supporting with righteous indignation the slaughter of the innocent preborn and the debased behavior of those steeped in the sins for which the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God Himself:

"While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.

"On the question of the individual's freedom of choice there are easily available birth-control methods and information which women may employ to prevent or postpone pregnancy. But once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire. ...

"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." (Letter of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy to Mr. Tom Dennelly of Great Neck, New York, August 3, 1971, A Tale of Two Teddies: Pro-choice Kennedy was pro-life in 1971.)

Barring the existence of such a letter to be read at his funeral, which will be a typical Novus Ordo celebration replete with eulogies and applause, the authority of the Catholic Church, having excommunicated Ted Kennedy solemnly long ago, would have barred any public ceremonies held in any Catholic facility for him after his death. Kennedy could have used the last fifteen months to make public amends for his public crimes against God and man by his support of one moral evil after another, to say nothing of his support for the injustices of statism that have turned the United States of America into a Third World debtor nation financially, mirroring its status as debtor nation to God for all of the crimes against Him that have been sanctioned under civil law domestically and exported internationally by means of American foreign aid programs and by means of the corrupting influence of American popular culture.

Yes, of course, we pray for the soul of the deceased. Only God knows exactly what happens to a soul at the moment of his Particular Judgment. As noted before, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died to redeem Edward Moore Kennedy. We will only know on the Last Day, at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead, whether Senator Kennedy made a perfect Act of Contrition during the final hours of his life and expressed true sorrow for his support of the evils he advanced in his public life. I prayed frequently for Edward Moore Kennedy in life. I will pray for his immortal soul every day, knowing that Our Lady will direct the fruit of those prayers to some other soul if the late senior United States Senator from Massachusetts remained unrepentant for his crimes against God and man until he drew his final breath.

We do know this, however: Senator Kennedy would have been required by a true Catholic priest to have repented publicly of his crimes against God and man as part of the penance he received when making his Last Confession. The late Senator Kennedy's public crimes involving the promotion and protection of baby-killing, the promotion of Federal funds for fetal tissue research, the harassment of pro-life Catholics praying their Rosaries outside of American killing centers by virtue of the so-called "Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act," his support in public life for his fellow pro-aborts, and his unreconstructed support of "rights" for those who base their human identities on sins opposed to nature caused grave scandal and caused great harm to the nation he sought to serve. A true Catholic priest would have required him to repent publicly of this harm. That this was not done by the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism speaks volumes about their being bereft of anything remotely approaching the sensus Catholicus.

Edward Moore Kennedy was just another in the long line of victims of Americanism, convinced that he could do and say and believe whatever he wanted even if he defied the authority of the Catholic Church. He was reaffirmed in his beliefs by a steady cadre of "bishops" and "priests" and presbyters in the conciliar structures. At the core of the "common ground" between Edward Moore Kennedy and these conciliar officials, you see, is a fundamental rejection of the authentic Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, exemplified so clearly by Pope Leo XIII in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

Under such evil circumstances therefore, each one is bound in conscience to watch over himself, taking all means possible to preserve the faith inviolate in the depths of his soul, avoiding all risks, and arming himself on all occasions, especially against the various specious sophisms rife among non-believers. In order to safeguard this virtue of faith in its integrity, We declare it to be very profitable and consistent with the requirements of the time, that each one, according to the measure of his capacity and intelligence, should make a deep study of Christian doctrine, and imbue his mind with as perfect a knowledge as may be of those matters that are interwoven with religion and lie within the range of reason. And as it is necessary that faith should not only abide untarnished in the soul, but should grow with ever painstaking increase, the suppliant and humble entreaty of the apostles ought constantly to be addressed to God: "Increase our faith.''

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error.

 

Edward Moore Kennedy lived his life in defiance of these truths. He professed--and was loyal to--the "faith" of naturalism and sentimentality as he spat in the face of His Divine Redeemer by promoting one sin after another under the cover of civil law in the name of "human rights" and "compassion" and "dignity." His is a life to be pitied, not celebrated, not emulated, not eulogized. While, as noted before, we pray for God's ineffable Mercy upon his immortal soul, we also remember that God is just. It is a tragedy that Edward Moore Kennedy, a true son of Americanism, never understood these simple words of the great saint whose feast is celebrated in our liturgy tomorrow, Friday, August 28, 2009, Saint Augustine of Hippo:

"But the death of the soul is worse than the freedom of error." (quoted by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

 

May we learn this lesson in our lives. May we understand and accept that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Nothing else. No compromises. Not one. Not ever.

What I wrote in Time to Prepare fifteen months ago is worth repeating once again:

So what if Edward Moore Kennedy rejects the graces that Our Lady will send him as he nears death? So what? Our prayers will not be in vain. No prayer is ever wasted. Ever. Our Lady will use the merit of whatever prayers are offered to her by those of us who are consecrated to her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for the greater honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity and for the good of some other soul (or some other souls) if the person for whom we are praying at any given moment chooses to die in a state of final impenitence. No prayer is ever wasted. None. At any time.

The same holds true as we pray for the repose of Senator Kennedy's soul now that he has died. His life and death, however, serve as signal warning to us to be serious about our fidelity to the truths of the Catholic Faith at all times as we seek to discharge the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, not one of which involves supporting the slicing and dicing of innocent human babies under cover of the civil law. For it is one thing to sin and to be sorry as we seek out the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Behold! A terrible sinner writes these articles. Alas, it is quite another to sin unrepentantly, worse yet to seek to promote sin under cover of the civil law and in every aspect of popular culture.

We must be serious about making reparation for our own many sins, cleaving to true bishops and true bishops in the Catholic catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its officials who support one condemned dogmatic proposition after another as they indemnify the likes of Edward Moore Kennedy to the point of their deaths.

Let us use the time God has given us right now to pray a Rosary in reparation for our sins and for those of the likes of Senator Kennedy, begging Our Lady to help us to be ready at all times for our own deaths as we protect ourselves with the shield of her Brown Scapular and use the weapon of her Most Holy Rosary to ward off all of the influences of the world, the flesh, and the devil in our daily lives.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints