Comments

1. Anthony Andreass 08/30/2009 - 10:01 am  subscriber

   I think Dan Barry did an excellent job on this. It is well worth reading and shows that when Catholic liturgy is celebrated well, it can be extremely moving and meaningful to worshippers. Job very well done, Dan. (Full disclosure: Dan is a parishioner of ours at the Oratory in Brooklyn.)

2. Anthony Andreass 08/30/2009 - 10:10 am  subscriber

   Since the news has been plastered with all things Kennedy, does anyone want to play a Kennedy trivia game? (no cheating by using google)

   What well-known elected official did RFK as to serve as the godfather of his first child?

3. Anthony Andreass 08/30/2009 - 10:10 am  subscriber

   should read “ask to serve”

4. Alan C. Mitchell 08/30/2009 - 1:15 pm  subscriber

   Joe McCarthy

5. Margaret O’Brien Steinfels 08/30/2009 - 1:30 pm  subscriber  contributor

   Robert Kennedy was the counsel for McCarthy’s committee, Right?

6. Anthony Andreass 08/30/2009 - 4:20 pm  subscriber

   Yes, to both. I am very impressed–but I should have known how smart dotCommonweal readers and posters were.

7. Margaret O’Brien Steinfels 08/30/2009 - 4:39 pm  subscriber  contributor

   These two factoids! should remind us that the Liberal that Teddy Kennedy became was not the liberalism of his brothers. Robert Kennedy as AG under his brother was regarded with great suspicion by the civil rights movement (remember the FBI was part of his office and J. Edgar Hoover was still its director). At some point JFK and MLK, Jr., came to an understanding (I can’t remember when), but in important ways it was LBJ who struck out for a legal remedy to segregation in the Voting Rights Act, etc.

8. Bill Mazzella 08/30/2009 - 6:08 pm  subscriber

   Superb “prayers of the faithful.”

   That human beings be measured not by what they cannot do but by what they can do. That quality health care becomes a fundamental right and not a privilege. That the old politics of race and gender die away. That newcomers be accepted, no matter their color or place of birth. That the nation stand united against violence, hate and war. And, in echo of his famous words, that the work begins anew, the hope arises anew, and the dream lives on.

9. Joe McMahon 08/31/2009 - 12:35 pm  subscriber

   The NY Times op ed page, print edition, 8.31.2009, has a one-column analysis by Russ Douthat. He contrasts Eunice and Ted regarding abortion.
   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31douthat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=douthat&st=cse

   Already I see a hundred comments on Douthat’s piece.
   Joe

10. Margaret O’Brien Steinfels 08/31/2009 - 12:45 pm  subscriber  contributor

    Joe McM. Thanks for posting that. It would be a great social science/history project to trace the shift of Catholic Democrats from pro-life to pro-choice–not only Kennedy, of course, but many others (ditto pro-choice Republicans who became pro-life).

    As we look back on the sixties and seventies, it’s always instructive to be reminded of the influence of the civil rights and women’s movements on the Democratic Party–influences that don’t seem quite so forceful today, but which certainly left their mark on its positions.

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