A Resounding Rejection of the Kennedy Legacy
By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 13, 2010
On December 4th, Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts sponsored a symposium on “St. Thomas More and Statesmanship: The Proper Role of Catholic Politicians”. The symposium featured addresses by former Senator Rick Santorum; Ray Flynn, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See; and judicial scholar Hadley Arkes.
All three speakers rejected the legacy of moral confusion inspired by John F. Kennedy’s famous Houston speech, in which he vowed not to let his political conscience be informed by his Catholic faith, a legacy exemplified a quarter-century later by Mario Cuomo’s famous “personally opposed but” speech on abortion, and a legacy which has shaped the majority of Catholic legislators in the current House and Senate. Santorum, Flynn and Arkes all insisted on the importance of God and the natural law as the ultimate arbiters of whether a human law is moral or immoral.
This was an outstanding symposium on the duties of Catholics in politics. Videos of these addresses can be viewed at Thomas More College Symposium.
Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
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Posted by: mary_conces3421 -
Aug. 26, 2017 9:51 AM ET USA
Thank you! You have said what I like to think I would have said when I responded to Phil's excellent article, but I was limited to 500 characters.:) "Everybody knows", you say above: a rhetorical device? Some know; many don't--or don't care--or think the form of the Liturgy (the Church's Work!) doesn't matter.
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Aug. 26, 2017 1:01 AM ET USA
A light of hope for those attached to the extraordinary form of the Roman rite is found in the following excerpt from Pope Francis' address to the "Participants in the 68th National Liturgical Week:" "The harmony of traditional rituals, of East and West, by the breath of the same Spirit gives a voice to the single prayerful Church, for Christ, with Christ and in Christ, to the glory of the Father and for the salvation of the world." We hope he considers the 1962 missal a "traditional ritual."
