Teddy and the Pope

In my "Real Legacy of Ted Kennedy" post I wrote this:

He was able to get away with all sorts of behavior that would have ended the careers of anyone else. He cloaked himself in the mantle of Catholicism while routinely ignoring its teachings and precepts.

And today there's this story:

There was a poignant footnote to President Obama's historic July 10 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Behind closed doors in the papal library, Obama handed Benedict a letter that Senator Edward Kennedy had asked him to personally deliver to the pontiff. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later told reporters that nobody - not even the President - knew the contents of the sealed missive. Obama himself asked Benedict to pray for Kennedy, and called the ailing Senator afterward to fill him in on his encounter with the 82-year-old Pope.

The letter, most likely already re-sealed and tucked away in the Vatican archives, was probably just a dying Catholic's request for a papal blessing. In the eyes of the traditionalist wing of the Church, however, Kennedy should have been asking the Pope for forgiveness. The Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported Kennedy's death, praising his work on civil rights and fighting poverty, but noted that his record was marred by his stance on abortion. As of yet, unlike some other world leaders, Pope Benedict has not commented or issued an official communique in response to Kennedy's death. One veteran official at the Vatican, of U.S. nationality, expressed the view of many conservatives about the Kennedy clan's rapport with the Catholic Church: "Why would he even write a letter to the Pope? The Kennedys have always been defiantly in opposition to the Roman Catholic magisterium." Magisterium is the formal expression for the authority of Church teaching.

I've never understood why the Catholic church allows prominent Catholics to publicly flaunt the church's teachings. Washington is full of them, including John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and others who regularly promote abortion. The church has no moral authority if it won't enforce its core teachings and discipline those Catholics who publicly defy them.

The Pope has never spoken out against the church's prominent heretics, but perhaps his silence now is a way of expressing disapproval. It's not very effective, but at least it's something.

And just as an interesting sidenote, Tropical Storm Danny will probably be soaking Boston during the funeral and health care rally. How many mainstream media talking heads will describe the pouring rain as "God's tears"?