The Curse Of The Kennedy Catholics Marches On

Again, I hate to say, we have a pro-abortion group, the non-profit Midwest Access Project, holding a pro-abortion workshop, the so so called papaya workshop, sponsored by a student group from Chicago’s Catholic Loyola University. The student group, Students For Reproductive Justice, held the papaya workshop at a local women’s health center.

The  workshop was apparently a great success. And its purpose?

The purpose of the papaya workshop is for students to learn about aspiration abortions, and to destigmatize abortion in general. Abortion is a simple medical procedure. Up to 10 weeks, this procedure is very similar to sucking the seeds out of a papaya!

You can see a short (1 min) video here from the workshop showing a student being guided, using medical terminology, in using a canula to “abort” papaya seeds.

You may wonder, as I did, why is it that so many Catholic Colleges and Universities seem to tilt so far leftist. The answer to that question goes, in large part, to the Kennedy clan and communist community organizer Saul Alinsky.

Believe it or not, the Kennedy clan was once upon a time staunchly pro-life The Curse Of The Kennedy Catholics. Back in August 1971, then Senator Ted Kennedy wrote:

When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.

However, as the winds of change began to shift in favor of abortion, and realizing that to remain politically relevant in the Democrat Party they needed to embrace abortion, in 1964 the Kennedys called together a number of Catholic Priests and Theologians to its Hyannisport, MA compound to find a way to support abortion and still be good Catholics.

At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience.”
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[T]he Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that “distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue.” It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians “might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order.”

That the Kennedys were able to find Catholic priests and theologians willing, if not eager, to bless their pro-abortion stance stems, largely, from the actions of one man – Saul Alinsky.

In 1938 atheist, communist Saul Alinsky was working in Chicago with juvenile delinquents. During that work he became close with Msgr. Peter Meegan, a Catholic priest who was the secretary to Chicago’s Auxillary Bishop Bernard Sheil. Did the Roman Catholic Church work to create socialism in the United States?.

In 1939 Saul Alinsky organized the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BNYC), whose motto was, “We the people will work out our own destiny.”  Alinsky was able to convince Bishop Sheil and radical labor unions to come together to support BNYC. This relationship was cemented when the Bishop appeared on stage with radical labor leader John Lewis (think mine and steel unions and the root of the AFLCIO) at a rally for the BNYC, making clear to the public, and more importantly, Catholic laity, that the church sanctioned Alinsky’s kind of activism.

In 1947 Alinsky strengthened his ties with the Catholic Church through his friendship with Msgr. Jack Egan – a friendship so close that the press referred to Egan as “Saul’s priest intern.” Impressed with Alinsky’s strategies, as outlined in Reveille for Radicals, Egan even established groups to train young Catholics in community organizing.

The unholy reign of Alinsky and Egan ended in 1968 when newly appointed Cardinal Cody realized what was going on, and closed their operation at the Chicago Chancellery Office.

Sadly, Msgr. Egan was rescued by equally radical Fr. Hesburgh of Notre Dame University. From there, for 14 years, Egan continued to work with Alinsky to spread his radical ideas and methods.

Egan spread the Alinsky model across the nation. Why not? He now had the academic bona fides of one of Catholicism’s showcase universities. Priests arriving for training in the tactics of change were instructed by Alinsky himself. These priests carried the socialist gospel to hundreds of dioceses.

Doubtless many of the Priests and Theologians at the Kennedys’ 1964 Hyannisport compound meeting were beneficiaries of Saul Alinsky’s ideas as they had, essentially, the approval of the Catholic Church itself. So it’s not surprising that the Kennedys were able to find support in the Church for what they wanted – to be able to support abortion with a clear conscience.

And with the Church joining in with America’s leftist community on abortion, there is no wonder as to why it spread so rapidly. And given abortions unwavering support in the media and by Hollywood, its support by America’s most prominent Catholic family, the Kennedys, and the spread of moral equivalency by top Catholic prelates such as Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Bernardin’s Seamless Garment Theology which declared that ending poverty or war was just as important as ending abortion or fighting euthanasia, is it any wonder that groups such as Students For Reproductive Justice operate unopposed on Catholic campuses? No it is not. Further, is it surprising that millions of ordinary Catholics continue to this day to vote for the Democratic Party with a clear conscience, and that nearly all “devout” Catholic Democrat Party politicians fight viciously to protect and advance pro-abortion legislation. Again, the answer is no.

And speaking of Catholic politicians, one such politician is VP candidate Tim Kaine, who has recently been in the news, coming out strongly in favor of abortion and Planned Parenthood.

Kaine’s pronouncements were, of course, met with a hearty ho hum by the media and Catholic hierarchy. But some Catholic Priests see clearly what Tim Kaine, and Nancy Pelosi, and all the other “devout” Catholic politicians who support abortion truly are. One such priest is Fr. Dwight Longenecker, who writing of the 1964 meeting of the Kennedys with Priests and Theologians in Hyannisport, says that Tim Kaine is a Catholic in the mold of the Kennedy clan – meaning not at all.

As usual with lying intellectuals, the lie is greased with suitably intellectual sounding concept, subtle language and clever phraseology. To put the whole thing more plainly they were saying, “You can support killing the unborn if you think being opposed might upset people.”

Notice too that “might tolerate legislation” became “might support legislation” which became “will support legislation” which became “we’re gung ho supporters of abortion and can I please have the Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger Eugenicist of the Year this time around?

I’d like to say Tim Kaine is in good company. In fact he’s in rotten company, and looking down the road to the future. The only way he and Hiliary will be able to sustain the lie is through force.

There is something deeply, deeply broken in a society whose first response to an unplanned pregnancy has become kill the child. I think that the only way for America to truly rid itself of the killing lie of which Fr. Longenecker speaks, and of its death dance with abortion, is to cleanse itself of the stain of Alinsky’s ideas – especially the American Catholic Church which did far too much to spread them. For until we can once again as a nation respect and protect human life itself, and view human life as precious and sacred, our societal implosion will, I believe, continue unabated.