Quick Thought on Kennedy's Letter to Pope
Here's a quickie in honor of Ted Kennedy who liked quickies, especially at lunchtime. It's based on this article about "scholars" studying the letters between The Big Guy and the Pope. This is the line that caught my eye, on page 2:
In both instances, only excerpts from the letters were read aloud, so it is not known whether other subjects, such as Kennedy’s support for abortion rights, were discussed in the correspondence.
OK, well I guess they left out all the unimportant stuff. Or... maybe Teddy knew the real Third Secret? Unclear.
When I read the letter, my first impression was that it represented a half-hearted grasp of a morally confused, dying man, unconscious of his pomposity and self-importance. This was my second and third impression as well. Possibly he actually thought he was being deeply humble, even as he had the letter hand delivered by the President of the United States. However, God is the ultimate judge, and as always, your mileage may vary, as we say on the internets.
Ted's letter seemed gracious to me. Yeah, there was a bit of look-at-all-I've-tried-to-do (trying to add to the good side of the ledger?), but there was also humility for personal failings (even if those failings may have included pomposity and self-importance).
ReplyDeleteI'm OK with the letter. I'll assume that the reading of the letter at his funeral was not Ted's doing, in which case the letter was a nice thing for him to have done.
Well, I don't doubt that even a creep like TK can have moments of goodness, even grandeur. But as soon as he mentioned his health care ideology, the letter falls from graciousness into political mud.
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