ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Sept. 10 2009

Not all Catholics mourn the end of Camelot
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II's announcement this week that he will not
seek his uncle's vacant Massachusetts Senate seat came as a blow to Kennedy
family fans hoping for a continuation of Camelot. But for those who have long
since lost interest in the Kennedy mystique, it came as a welcome relief.

After weeks of watching star-struck pundits portray the late U.S. Sen. Edward
Kennedy as the patron saint of American statesmen, hearing his Democratic
colleagues laud him as a cross between Mother Teresa and Abe Lincoln, and
witnessing a funeral Mass that resembled a canonization ceremony more than a
plea for mercy on the soul of an accomplished but flawed human being, many
Americans have heard enough about the "Lion of the Senate" and "America's royal
family" to last a lifetime.

Surprisingly to some, much of the anger over the lopsided coverage of Kennedy's
legacy — and the near-total media blackout of his less illustrious deeds in
personal and public life — has come from Kennedy's fellow Catholics.

For more than half a century, the Kennedy clan has enjoyed rock-star status
among Catholics who remember the election of America's first Catholic president
with overwhelming pride and nostalgia. President John F. Kennedy's 1960 victory
— with the help of 80 percent of Catholic voters — symbolized a cultural coming
of age for American Catholicism. Catholics who had grown up feeling like aliens
in a Protestant nation suspicious of "papists" suddenly felt accepted and
approved. That feeling went double for Irish Catholics, who still remembered
the days when "Irish Need Not Apply" signs littered storefronts and the notion
of an Irish Catholic in the Oval Office seemed as outlandish as a man landing
on the moon.

Yet Kennedy's presidential victory came at a cost. Eager to prove that he would
be no puppet of the pope, Kennedy delivered a now-famous Houston speech in
which he articulated a strident separationist position on church-state issues
and disavowed virtually any influence of Catholic principles on his political
choices. The bargain Kennedy struck that day — that he would ascend to the Oval
Office as a Catholic but check his faith at the door — put some of his
anti-Catholic critics at ease. And the rigid line he drew between his private
faith and public life soon was adopted by other Catholic politicians, including
his youngest brother.

Ted Kennedy frequently drew connections between his Catholic faith and his
advocacy for statist solutions to social welfare problems, issues on which
church teaching allows Catholics wide latitude to disagree on the most
effective policy fixes. Yet when it came to those moral issues on which the
Catholic Church takes a non-negotiable position — from opposition to abortion
and embryo-destructive research to defense of traditional marriage — Kennedy
never squared the contradiction between his faith and his public actions. As
his 100 percent NARAL voting score attests, Kennedy was a fierce and unyielding
opponent of Catholic teaching on the one issue that Pope Benedict XVI has said
must top the list for Catholics active in the public square: "The protection of
life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception."

The disconnect between Ted Kennedy's professed faith and his public flouting of
its fundamental tenets has not been lost on Catholics. Many still feel a tribal
loyalty to the clan that proved Catholics can make it in America. But many
others — particularly a growing number of younger, pro-life Catholics — feel no
such loyalty to a political dynasty whose members are among the most vocal
opponents of Catholic teaching on the moral issues that they and their Church
consider most consequential. For these Catholics, the end of Camelot has come
not a moment too soon.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.