Chicago Catholic News: The Mail Bag -- Readers sound off on Kennedy prayer

The Mail Bag -- Readers sound off on Kennedy prayer

(POSTED: 9/14/09) I was amazed to find that your publication published [on 9/9/09] a retraction about offering prayers for Ted Kennedy. Have you no shame or decency? Looks like you had to cover your tracks. What about showing compassion for what he has done for the greater public good? He had acknowledged his imperfections -- are we all not perfect? I hope your publication can look inward and pray that you have sinned for this grievous and obvious action.
--Michael

I just read that the "Archdiocese of Chicago has apologized for authoring a prayer that lavished praise on the late Ted Kennedy, whose views on abortion collided with those of the Roman Catholic Church."
This is so wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin . . .
Yes, I believe in what Pope John Paul II called "A Consistent Ethic of Life" and as a practicing Catholic, I also believe in the redemptive qualities of our faith, a fact that I think many Catholics say they believe but really do not.
Senator Edward Kennedy was many things, a Catholic, father and brother to our beloved President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, as well as a United States Senator who during his life fought for the health of all Americans against those who have cared only for profit.
To dishonor the good this gentleman did is inappropriate and nasty to say the least and is a slap in the face to our new President Barack Obama. It also brings into sharp focus a problem that the American Catholic Church has now . . .
Replacing the worship of The Holy Trinity with the worship of The Republican Party, a conclusion that I reached when, just after the election in November, I was told, in no uncertain terms that "Voting the economy" was wrong and that "Jesus would have something to say to me."
I cannot put into words the shock that this statement gave me. Here I am in the place that should be of comfort, with Jesus Christ and now I am told that voting against those who have outsourced my American job to a foreign land, against those who have started a war without provocation, against those who have violated the Geneva Accords and done other horrendous things . . . I am told that voting against these actions is wrong?
To say that my faith, not in God but in our American Catholic Leadership, has been shaken is an understatement.
I have since dusted my feet off, as Jesus said we should do, and left that parish to attend Sunday Mass at a neighboring one.
And I must wonder just how many other good Catholics, young and old, are feeling the same way and who might be on the verge of leaving the church because of some of the leadership of our church.
I wonder too, what Jesus will say to those who are all too happy to condemn many of us because we do not worship the Republican Party or those who forget his message of redemption?
--Edward

This Kennedy Prayer article is shameful . . . and a waste of time and space . . . but then again your archdiocese was against the President speaking at Notre Dame . . .
Shame on you . . .
--Leary

Don't vilify Kennedy. The reason most of my family is not Catholic any more is because this type of behavior. Ted Kennedy was a great man. The reason that most people are leaving the church is because preaching hatred is wrong. Also touching little boys or girls is not very Christian.
--David

Why doesn't your website print its articles in a readable type? That gray doesn't work.
--Barry

Was reading the article [from 9/3/09] in the suntimes about the up and coming commercials you are planning.
I can picture them somewhere between the beer and lover's lane commercial. Real eye catcher!
If you want to bring people back to the church why not try this -- bring back the beauty of our altars into the church. The only thing different now from the Protestant and Catholic church is they have better wood paneling!
Put JESUS in the middle where he belongs instead off to the side. It used to be that the sanctuary light never [was] out -- someone always was there to keep it lit. Now it's out . . . bring back the reverence of the Latin mass.
Bring back the Latin hymns that you could actually pray while they were sung. With some of your new songs reminds you of attending a hoot-en-any.
. . . I will watch the commercials and if nothing else get a good laugh.
Yes, I am a practicing Catholic!
--Kenneth

I was outraged as well, as I read Bishop Ray Goedert's deposition recently, but not surprised, "Out of Left Field: Another deposition, more betrayal," (08/31/09).
As a woman religious, as a Catholic, and as an abuse victims' advocate I have felt deeply betrayed and scandalized by the actions of so many in church leadership over the past decades in regard to the church's continuing sexual abuse problems, not only in regard to children but also as concerns young people, adult men, women and vulnerable adults.
Why even the reports of the sexual abuse of women religious which was reported years ago has not be adequately responded to by church leadership.
Sadly, though, the Archdiocese of Chicago is in no way unique. One only has to read the 2007 Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia or any other of a number of investigations conducted across the country to realize to what breadth and depth this malignancy and horrific abuse of power and position has gone.
What is truly appalling, however, is that bishops across this country from Archbishop Charles Chuput of Denver, Colorado to Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore, Maryland continue to viciously oppose legislative reforms aimed at the better protecting all children from sexual predators no matter their stripe.
Others are not above threatening legislators as Nicholas DiMarzio, bishop of Brooklyn and Queens, New York has done recently in telling Catholic legislators there that if they support the proposed Child Victims act there, he will close parishes in their districts.
What chutzpah!
Certainly not what one would expect from those charged by the Lord Jesus Christ to protect the most vulnerable among us when he said in the gospel of St. Mark 9:42:
"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea."
--Maureen

Note: Some letters were edited for space, and to clean up punctuation and misspellings.

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