Teddy Kennedy, 1932-2009

I was always fond of Ted Kennedy, who died last night at age 77 after a long and brave struggle with brain cancer. When I was 13, I had a “Kennedy ’80″ bumpersticker on my Schwinn bicycle, and walked precincts for him before the Democratic primary. I was hopeful he would run again in 1984 or ’88, and saddened that he chose not to. I followed his senate career with interest, noting in particular his brave and proud commitment to liberal political values during that lamentable era when “liberal” became a curse word. (Teddy never eschewed that word, never insisted on being called a “New Democrat” or a “progressive”; he was a liberal and proud of it.)

Kennedy fought to create a more inclusive America, a greener America, a fundamentally more equitable America. I looked up his lifetime voting ratings from organizations who share the values I embrace: NARAL, the League of Conservation Voters, the Human Rights Campaign. No other senator has had such a consistently progressive voting record over the course of many decades. And certainly, no other senator fought as hard for health care reform as did he. It is to be hoped that the senate he loved will pass a health care reform bill of which Teddy would be proud.

Much has been made of his personal life, which was beset by turmoil (much of it of his own making.) The best comment I’ve read on that comes from Kennedy’s fellow Catholic, arch-conservative blogger Elizabeth Scalia. While some voices on the right have been venomous in their condemnation of the late senator, Scalia is more balanced:

God knows more, and sees more, than the rest of us, because eventually we’ll all need to count on his mercy, as we face his justice. For all that we know of Kennedy, there is much we do not know. A family member who works with the very poor once told me that when he was in a real fix and unable to find help for, for instance, a sick child in need of surgery, a phone call to Kennedy’s office would set the “Irish Mafia” of professional people -doctors, lawyers, pilots and such- into brisk motion. I think an examination of the life of every “great” person (and I mean “great” in terms of power and influence) will expose deep flaws and surprising episodes of generosity.

As I wrote here, “the quiet altruism of a public man is always overshadowed by the noise of his sins,” and, “Is it arrogance and entitlement that keeps a public man of public failings turning, and turning again, to the Mass, the sacraments, and the tribe, or is it a kind of humility, a declaration of need that supersedes riches and power and all the consolations of the world?”

Kennedy went to Mass as often as he could, and was frequently a daily communicant. His Christianity was not merely cultural, or political — it was his sustenance and his strength. Indeed, it would not be wrong to call Ted Kennedy among the most deeply faithful of senators. Scalia finds his generosity “surprising”, perhaps because her politics are so diametrically opposed to Kennedy’s, or perhaps because in her understanding of moral anthropology, sin is our default mode. There is a tendency on the right to see the faith of those on the left as superficial; the cognitive dissonance that would arise from acknowledging that someone can be both deeply faithful to Christ and deeply committed to progressive politics and sexual freedom seems too much for many conservatives to bear.

Ted Kennedy was many things, among them a man of profound faith in God and His Church and a man profoundly committed to “building the Kingdom” here on earth. He has earned the famous benedictory verse from Matthew 25:21, so often recited at funerals and inscribed on memorials, “well done, good and faithful servant.”