Tedd kennedy statement

by lancelink 5 Replies latest jw friends

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  lancelink

  I was three years old when JFK was shot.

  Hardly remember Bobby dying.

  Yet with all the Tedd kennedy stuff on the news this week, I was just thinking about how this family has affected so many people over the years.

  And still while reading about Ted's life, his problems / triumphs / sorrows and joys, a little comment was printed that really grabbed my attention.

  The Kennedy's were all Catholic, and it seems that Ted had a really powerful opinion about religion:

  " I am an American and Catholic, I love my country and treasure my faith, but I do not assume that my conception of patriotism or policy is unvariably correct. Or that my convictions about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society.

  I believe that there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly on it ?

  It made me think about the attitude the witnesses carry around, arrogant and hardnosed, VS openminded, and empathetic
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  dinah

  You mean to tell me the religious right didn't influence him? Guess that's why that hated him so much
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  beksbks

  I'm watching some kind of memorial for him right now. So many folks have spoken. Republicans even. Gave me new respect for Orrin Hatch, who appeared to really love him. It's amazing how many people who have said when they had some kind of pain or tragedy in thier life, he is the first one who called. They just had a beautiful Gospel Choir.

  In the spirit of this thread Lancelink, here is JFK's religion speech when he was running for President.

  On Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave a major speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers, on the issue of his religion. At the time, many Protestants questioned whether Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith would allow him to make important national decisions as president independent of the church. Kennedy addressed those concerns before a skeptical audience of Protestant clergy. The following is a transcript of Kennedy's speech:

  Kennedy: Rev. Meza, Rev. Reck, I'm grateful for your generous invitation to speak my views.

  While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida; the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power; the hungry children I saw in West Virginia; the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills; the families forced to give up their farms; an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

  These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.

  But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

  I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

  I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

  For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

  Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

  That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

  I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.

  I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

  This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."

  And in fact ,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom; and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey. But no one knows whether they were Catholic or not, for there was no religious test at the Alamo.

  I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)— instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.

  I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts. Why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their presidency to Protestants, and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France, and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.

  But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.

  Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

  But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

  But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.

  If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being president on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser — in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.

  But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.
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  BizzyBee

  Ted bore so much personal pain and sorrow and, yes, guilt, and yet he recognized his - responsibility? - to the next generation, especially those his brothers left behind. Unlike most politicians, who cater to special interests and big business that contribute to their election and re-election, Ted championed those who could not give anything in return except their undying gratitude - the poor, blacks, the disabled, and children.

  His sins and character flaws are neither dismissed nor discounted. But if there is any validity to the notion of redemption through remorse or good works, he certainly qualified.
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  BizzyBee

  I was actually recalling to someone today, the legacy of Lee Atwater - who taught Karl Rove how to be Rovian. He set the tone for Republican politics for many years to come - and many wins - and therefore, ultimately, many deaths. Nothing to be proud of, as the following comment point out:

  How Shall You Die? Like Ted Kennedy? Or Lee Atwater?

  Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 08:40:52 PM PDT

  Lee Atwater was the Republican pitbull who taught Karl Rove much of what Karl knows when it comes to winning at any cost. Atwater helped coin the phrase “wedge issues.” Atwater was the first Bush’s political henchman, he destroyed Michael Dukakis using Willy Horton and turning the election of 1988 into a conversation about such weighty topics as the pledge of allegiance and flag burning. That’s how the first Bush became president. By convincing America that Michael Dukakis was a flag burner who wanted to free black rapists so they could rape again.

  Just Like Ted Kennedy, Atwater died of a brain tumor. Although at a very young age. And as he lay dying in 1991, he saw the light. He converted to Catholicism, Teddy’s religion. And realizing he had been a force of evil, he offered up a famous deathbed confession. He apologized for what he did to Dukakis, and for what he did to American politics

  And for doing that, he in some ways redeemed himself.

  The Dr. Frankenstein who spawned Karl Rove, the man who invented the rabid style of Republican attack dog politics, admitted it was evil. This is what Atwater admitted to in how Republicans win elections:

  Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

  And then only weeks before dying, he wrote, in, ironically, Life Magazine,

  My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

  So if you’re still sorting out your politics think of Ted Kennedy in repose this morning. Think of Lee Atwater. And ask yourself how do you want to die? Like Lee Atwater who at the end realized that the only value to his life was serving as a cautionary tale of how not to live it? Or do you want to die like Ted Kennedy who, born into privilege, spent every waking day helping those less fortunate?

  Bush, Sarah Palin and the entire lot of the GOP constantly remind us what an important role Christ plays in their lives when they’re not trying to deny funding for the sick and poor. Ted Kennedy never had to discuss his relationship with Christ. He knew that by his works ye shall know him.
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  beksbks