The Flames of Dissent and Discord

Politicians make asinine statements all the time, but sometimes there is one that stands out from the crowd for its sheer cluelessness, duplicity and perversity.  Patrick Kennedy, yep, one of Teddy Kennedy’s sons, a Democrat member of Congress from Rhode Island, lambasted the Church for not falling into line behind ObamaCare. Here is a statement that he made  to CNSNews.

“I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time, where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we’re caring and giving health care to the human person–that right now we have 50 million people who are uninsured,” Kennedy told CNSNews.com when asked about a letter the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had sent to members of Congress stating the bishops’ position on abortion funding in the health-care bill.

“You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people life saving health care? I thought they were pro-life?” said Kennedy. “If the church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health care reform because it’s going to provide health care that are going to keep people alive. So this is an absolute red herring and I don’t think that it does anything but to fan the flames of dissent and discord and I don’t think it’s productive at all.”

The  Bishop of Providence, Thomas J. Tobin, responded to this tirade as follows:

“Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s statement about the Catholic Church’s position on health care reform is irresponsible and ignorant of the facts. As I wrote to Congressman Kennedy and other members of the Rhode Island Congressional Delegation recently, the Bishops of the United States are indeed in favor of comprehensive health care reform and have been for many years. But we are adamantly opposed to health care legislation that threatens the life of unborn children, requires taxpayers to pay for abortion, rations health care, or compromises the conscience of individuals.”

“Congressman Kennedy continues to be a disappointment to the Catholic Church and to the citizens of the State of Rhode Island. I believe the Congressman owes us an apology for his irresponsible comments. It is my fervent hope and prayer that he will find a way to provide more effective and morally responsible leadership for our state,” Tobin added.

Kennedy subsequently apologized for a “poor choice of words”.  My friend Jay Anderson, in  a spectacular post at Pro Ecclesia here, says it all:

Typical Kennedy mindset: the Church isn’t being truly “Catholic” unless it’s supporting Democrats and Democrat policies.

But the gene pool at the compound in Hyannisport is getting shallower and shallower.

At least the previous generation of Kennedys had enough residual Catholicism to pretend to be faithful to the Church, and fudged their political preferences as being consistent with the demands of their faith because of their so-called “personal opposition” to the immoral B.S. for which they continued to vote and publicly advocate. Unburdened, however, by such hypocrisy – or by the need to be seen as the face of Catholic America, this present generation of Kennedy’s – from Kathleen “Obama is more Catholic than the Pope” Kennedy Townsend right down to Patrick “disappointment to the Catholic Church” Kennedy – have absolutely no qualms about directly attacking the Church, her Bishops, and her Magisterial teaching.

Kennedy had previously warned that opponents of ObamaCare might resort to violence.  I guess that when it comes to reaching a political goal Patrick Kennedy will say any fool thing that comes into his head, truth and consequences be hanged.  The man of course is an idiot, but the bigger idiots are the people who keep sending him back to Congress.