EXCERPT: The great ironic sadness is that Ted, so famous for finding common ground with the likes of Ronald Reagan, Orrin Hatch, and John McCain, could never find common ground on abortion. That failure allowed controversies over the “life issues” (abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.) to alienate millions of American Catholics from the very “liberal” tradition that made Kennedy’s politics so Catholic, so millions of Catholics are now “swing voters.” Ted’s blind spot on abortion blinded millions to Ted’s Catholicism.
I might argue, in fact, that Ted’s legacy was to sustain his brothers’ social justice agenda, which—until and except for his reaction to Roe v. Wade—made the Kennedys America’s greatest champions of Catholic social doctrine.
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