Saint Ted

The death of Ted Kennedy is an end to an era for America. We have seen the last of an American family that has been woven in to the American fabric and our political lives, for many of us we have never known a time with out a Kennedy in some sort of political office. 

To listen to the TV, Radio or read a paper it would seem that Kennedy was the King or supreme leader of America, and to some I am sure he was. Mr. Kennedy deserves respect and his family is entitled to their privacy, but I know the American Press and People and privacy will be hard to come by. And I know that some will make MR. Kennedy a saint and others will make him the devil. The family will be hounded and asked hundreds of stupid questions and the tabloids will have a field day with Ted and the alien love child and such.

Why do we do this, what makes us turn the death of someone in to this feeding frenzy? We saw it with Michael Jackson and now with Ted, what is with all this? It’s not only well known singers or politicians that get this treatment, we see it in the road side memorials we hear it when they interview the victims of a deadly shooting or we read about it online in blogs and newspapers.

We seem to have this need to create heroes out of the everyday. Mr. Kennedy is credited with many great acts, he is portrayed as a hero for the civil rights movement, and maybe he is. He signed in to law many bills giving protection to many minorities, he was a champion for woman’s rights. For the most part all very good deeds, and I am sure he signed them with a clear mind and only with the best of everyone’s interest at heart. I may be a conservative, but I find it hard that anyone would willing hurt people, even liberals.

But let us not forget the other side of Saint Ted, as a Catholic he committed several major sins, as we all have. He supported abortion, the killing of the least among us, he claimed in speeches to be looking out to protect the ones who can not protect themselves, yet he votes for abortion on demand. How can one claim to be looking out for the least among us yet participate in the killing of unborn babies? Now some may be saying that he did not actively participate in the abortion, well ok, but by his inaction to stop them and his direct action to support the law that allows them is an indirect killing. But that is for a different blog, this one is on Mr. Kennedy and why Americans feel the need to turn him in to a saint.

If I may, lets look back at a few things that may seem unrelated, but to me are a driving force to what has changed the fabric of America. This fabric that once took truly great men and woman and place them upon a pedestal to today were the average person is turned in to a celebrity or a saint. It takes the Catholic Church years, sometimes hundreds of years to canonize a person to give them the title of Saint, it take the American public one night to do the same. But first lets look at what I consider the reasons for the shift.

Sometime over the past 50 or 60 years we have shifted our views or outlook and our values, and in doing so we have lowered our standard of who and what makes a great person, and we have, out of prejudice or ignorance, or some will say enlighten, discounted or totally disregard true heroes and saints.

We look for the heroes and saints that fit our needs at the moment, not the ones that stand the test of time. Our discontentment with our Government our Life our faith our everything’s has created a society that strives for nothingness therefore we look for saints and heroes who fit in to this nothingness, who allow us to do as we please, as they did or do, allowing us to be a saintly or heroic as they were or are. For example, one nun stated she was proud to be a Catholic because Kennedy was. Mr, Kennedy who supported Abortion and was divorced and remarried in the church, who received annulments like they were nothing . Now I do not pretend to know the heart of Mr. Kennedy, but I do know the teachings of the faith, How can a nun state that a baby killer is a good example of be Catholic, how can that make her proud? It is this falseness that confuses the American landscape, it is this willingness to forget all transgressions, even thought the transgressor has not.

We have created a society that does not look past it’s own nose, a society that allows the sins of others to become there battle scars and there red badge of courage. We have allowed the counter culture the ability to dictate the culture, in the name of equality. We have allowed the truly great among us dissolve in to the back ground as we celebrate the “ideals” of the fallen. Ideals that lead to dead ends and one-way streets, ideals that reject conventional wisdom in the name of the ideals themselves. We, the American people, have created a generation of nothingness, and we have celebrated this nothingness so much that we have created two new saints, Saint Michael Jackson and Saint Ted Kennedy and we have elected the “messiah” in to the highest office of the United States of America. Each person deserving our respect as fellow human beings and fellow Americans, and each having achieved a certain level of greatness, but non quite the quality of Sainthood that will stand the teat of time.

As for me, I will stick to the tested saints of the times, give me a St. Theresa or St. Peter any day or even a John Paul the Great or a Fr. Salanus Casey, truly great people, with a greatness that will stand the test of time.

Now please understand I mean no disrespect to My. Kennedy or anyone else, I will pray for his soul and ask that God grace his family during this difficult time. But I will also ask God to bless America and help her find the path once again, that path that will lead us to greatness, a path that will restore our national fabric back to its original condition. Until than I will keep on loving American and I will keep praying and working towards an America that once again honors true greatness.

Paul