Redemptorist criticises accusations of "self-righteousness" at the funeral of Ted Kennedy

The Editor of Reality magazine has hit out at the ‘holier-than-thous’ in the Church who lambasted the Redemptorist community in Boston for hosting the funeral of US Senator, Ted Kennedy last August.

Writing in the Editorial of the October issue, Fr Gerard Moloney, CSsR, relates how the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a Redemptorist church in Boston, was chosen by the Senator before his death because it was there he had gone to pray every day during his daughter’s battle with cancer.

However, when it was announced that his funeral would take place in the Basilica, the Redemptorist community began to receive emails and messages that were highly critical of the decision.

“The messages were not only angry – they were hate-filled; they dripped with righteous indignation,” Fr Moloney writes.  Noting that the emails were written by Catholics, Fr Moloney says, “Not only did they not agree with Ted Kennedy’s politics or like him as a man, they didn’t want him to have a Catholic funeral.  They didn’t think he was entitled to it.”

Responding to this, Fr Moloney describes the tone and logic as “strange” saying if only perfect Catholics should get a Catholic funeral, “who would be deserving of one?  How could anyone – even including those ‘holier-than-thous’ who attacked the Boston Redemptorists be entitled to one?”

The Editor of Reality highlights one specific attack made by Edward Peters in his blog.  Every aspect of the funeral drew the ire of the canon lawyer, who Fr Moloney says employed a tone which is “So sanctimonious, so judgemental, so self-righteous.  Not much charity or compassion there.  No sense of the possibility of redemption.”

Referring to the Ryan Report, Fr Moloney says that in Ireland we are still trying to understand how those events could have happened and what warped theology lay behind them.  In his view, the theology responsible was a “theology of condescension, of arrogance, without compassion or heart, that saw the speck in other people’s eyes while being blind to the plank in one’s own.”  Acknowledging that Ted Kennedy wasn’t perfect, Fr Moloney recalls the letter that the Senator sent Pope Benedict through the auspices of US President Obama in which he wrote, “I know that I have been an imperfect human being...”  According to Reality’s Editor, that displayed a deep humility of the kind that should lie at the core of the faith.

Concluding, Fr Moloney writes, “Those who criticised the decision to give Senator Edward Kennedy a Catholic funeral not only don’t know a lot about being a Catholic, they know very little about being Christian.”

He adds that in his commitment to justice, in his concern for the poor, in his awareness of his own imperfections, Edward Kennedy “has been a far better witness to what it means to be Catholic and Christian” than the ‘holier-than-thous’."

Redemptorist Communications