Devout Dissident Catholic Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Attacks the Church ... Again

From the Contra Costa Times:

MORAGA — It didn't take long for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend to show Saint Mary's College students the renegade Catholic streak that got her blacklisted from religious speaking engagements and condemned by her parish priest.

"I think if you're in love, you should get married," the eldest daughter of Robert Kennedy said Tuesday when asked for her thoughts on same-sex marriage. "I think that's what Christ preached — love. "... So, Hallelujah for the lucky people in California that got the chance to be married."

The 58-year-old former lieutenant governor of Maryland rarely pulls a punch, particularly when discussing her celebrated Irish Catholic roots and frustration with her church's politics. She spoke to a packed Soda Center audience on the Moraga campus Tuesday night and in an earlier Times interview.

"The churches have failed America because they've narrowed faith to three issues: abortion, same-sex marriage and stem cell research," Townsend said. "And I thought that my faith tradition was we should care about the least among us [ED.: She says without a hint of irony]. We should care about the poor, health care, immigration."

[...]

However, she has grown increasingly frustrated with Catholicism's political pillars. She wrote in the Nov. 6 issue of Newsweek about her disappointment with Catholic bishops speaking out against health care reform based on the abortion issue.

"Why are we hearing more about abortion and less about immigrants?" she asked. "That's always the criticism that they seem to be more interested in the unborn rather than the people actually here among us.

[...]

The church has struck back, denying her speaking engagements at Catholic schools in her home diocese of Baltimore.

"But that happened a while ago and I just realized they are afraid of women," she said with a chuckle. "And it took them 300 years to realize that Galileo was right."

[More]

(emphasis and editorial commentary added)

My Comments:
I've opined previously on my belief that this entire younger generation of Kennedys seems to be swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool at the Kennedy Compound.

But a brief perusal of the links below, in which Townsend harps on these same themes over and over and over again in attacking the Church and its teachings, indicate that this woman is particularly stuck on stupid.

I'll say it again: 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 by attesting to 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 Kennedys have absolutely no qualms about directly attacking the Church, her Bishops, and her Magisterial teaching.

(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
A Kennedy Spits at the Church, and His Bishop Responds Harshly [UPDATED]

Newsweek: Obama More Catholic Than the Pope

Lefty Catholic Commentators Missed Their Chance to Dissuade Bishops on Abortion Stance

Kathryn Jean Lopez on the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast