The prelude to the passion narratives in the Gospels show a John the Baptist who went straight against Herod, the consummate politician of his day for moral issues. ,  Jesus did the same.,   Both also went against the Levitical clergy and the Sanhedrin in a non-partisan way be it the Sadducees or Pharisees. To them truth was truth, righteousness was righteousness, and sin was sin. According to the New Testament, their God is no respecter of persons. ,  Their priorities were never politically or financially motivated. In the climate that I grew up and in modern Americas today things have plainly changed.

Despite his Roman Catholic funeral mass, unless he repented and was regenerated by God’s Spirit at the end of his life, legislative baby killer Ted Kennedy most likely now languishes in hell forever as ‚   both the political and religious hypocrite he was, on one hand professing to be a committed Roman Catholic (which is at least ostensibly pro-life) but who politically was vehemently and consistently pro-death/-abortion yet was hypocritically given a Roman Catholic funeral. ‚  As with Boston’s pedophile-protecting Cardinal Law, the Roman Church itself says one thing but does another the same as the Boston politicians. As when Boston Cardinal Cushing publicly fudged the issue when Jacky Kennedy married a divorced Ari Onassis in violation of Roman Catholic canon law, in Boston and in Rome, money talks. Whether something is really right or wrong actually depends on who does it and much money they have rather than whether it is really right or wrong in and of itself .

Thomas Moore had no problem with the divorce of Henry VIII providing the pope declared it annulled as popes often did when it was in their political and/or financial interest to do so. Kennedy practiced typical Roman Catholicism "“ just go to confession (quite possibly to a child molesting priest), say a ritual mea culpa and continue with business as usual. It could be making another pro-abortion speech in congress, murdering someone again as with the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland, a Mafia Don continuing to run rackets "“ or if you happen to be the priest whom the Boston politician or IRA killer or Don confesses the "sin" to, you might sexually violate yet another defenseless child with the assured protection of the Roman church and bishop. Just go back to the confessional, kneel down, and tell a possible pedophile what you did (he sure won’t tell you what he did). It is a centuries old sick game, the hypocritical religious and political joke of Roman Catholicism that pro baby killing Ted Kennedy played well, comfortable in the solid knowledge that "as long as you have the cash, they have the absolution".

American political history saw several major Metropolitan areas dominated by less than straightforward Irish Catholic politicians. This is not to suggest that all Irish Catholics in the USA ever supported these machines or benefited from them anymore than all Italian Americans were ever involved with the Italian Mafia. It is rather a fact that in both cases ethnic members of their own communities were often disproportionately among the victims of their exploitation and corruption and the organized opposition to them often sprung from among their own kind. However the machines were real. In New York it was the Tammany Hall of Jimmy Walker; in New Jersey it was the Hudson county machine of Frank Hague; in Chicago it was the Cook County ‚  machine of Richard Daily; and in Boston it was the Kennedys.

In each case control of the high-density ethnic metropolitan vote (irrespective of whether it was gerrymandered or not) awarded the machine control of the state, but because they were important electoral college states demographically in the Northeast and Midwest, these machines could control much of national politics. In each case the police and prosecutor and DA offices were dominated by fellow Irishman. In each case from the ‚   widely reported Bolger mob and the rum running of old man Kennedy during prohibition in Boston (which indirectly financed the founding of his political empire), to Mickey Spillane and the Westies of New York, to the criminal regime of Micky Shaughnessy and Bugsy Moran in Chicago, to the original Molly Maguires of Pennsylvania. While not strictly speaking exclusive to Irish Americans, there was an ugly history of Irish Catholic organized crime in a situation where gangsters, law enforcement, and politicians had a very comfortable relationship "“ but the priest was there too. After all, not only could they all sing O Danny Boy and The Wearing of the Green but they were "good Catholics" and members of the Knights of Columbus who marched together in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. ‚  Yet I suspect that St. Patrick would have been more like Jesus and less like Cardinal Law.

The apex of this "machine" power was arguably reached in the manipulated election of JFK. ‚   Yet when JFK applauded the Earl Warren Supreme Court ban on voluntary school prayer, the Roman Catholic Church uttered not a word. It was not simply a three-legged table of politicians, gangsters, and cops and prosecutors. The fourth leg of Irish American political power was the Roman Catholic Church. Each faction benefited from what was on the table and no faction had an interest in turning the table upside down. The Church of Rome would quickly sweep the abortion issue under the table when it came to a Kennedy. With a Kennedy , a Joe Biden, and a Tip O’ Neill on Capitol Hill, it was unlikely that congressional or senatorial investigations into any nationally organized protection of pedophile nuns and priests by American bishops was not likely to happen and Irish Catholic prosecutors would be as reluctant to prosecute as Irish Catholic detectives would be reluctant to investigate. While far worse examples of this politically motivated dereliction of duty were uncovered in The Republic of Ireland, it is impossible to ignore the American realities.

When other Irish American political reformers, special prosecutors, and journalists tried to expose this travesty and break up its power (as Fiorello La Guardia, Mario Prococcino, Mario Biaggi, and Rudy Gullianni would do with the Italian "“American equivalent), they only went after three legs. Politicians, gangsters, and bent prosecutors and cops on the take were fair game. No one would dare touch the Roman Catholic church. ‚  My own family is a mixture of Irish and Jewish. My mother’s family are conservative Republican Irish Catholics. My grandfather was a conservative Republican (in the style of a Sean Hannity or a Bill O’ Reilly) and a senior ranking Irish Catholic police officer who knew his own kind and knew the machines for what they were and staunchly detested the Kennedys. He also understood how the "machine" ‚  (prior to civil service) routinely gave jobs in the police, fire department, transit authority etc. to Irish immigrants in order to keep a permanent underclass to vote Democrat against the Republican party of the Protestant establishment much as modern Democrat liberals use affirmative action to create a permanent Black underclass which Afro -American conservatives such as Allan Keyes, Walter Williams, and Star Parker protest because ‚  it makes upward mobility of American Blacks too much depend on party politics requiring a racial underclass as a power base. While my Irish family saw through the Irish "“ American political sham of the "machine" however, still - never a syllable could ever be muttered about the misconduct of the Roman Catholic church or its complicity in the sickening ‚  evil.

It cost $660 million in settlements ‚   plus legal fees to keep everyone’s favorite Irish American "“ ‚  discredited ‚  Los Angeles Cardinal Mahoney out of San Quinton in the estimation of many legal editorialists. ‚   Be they gangsters, crooked politicians, and dishonest District Attorneys , or church hierarchy obstructing justice to shield just sex criminal clergy at the cost of the children being molested ; be it Cardinal Law or the late senator from Chappaquiddick "“ no matter how hypocritical or corrupt, and irrespective of how many children are molested or babies aborted - the table must not be turned over. There is money and power at stake. Jesus of course saw things differently. He went against the religious establishment of His own ethnic kind and turned over the tables because He is about God, salvation, and righteousness "“ not about money and politics. ‚  (Mt. 21:12). ‚  But while the College of Cardinals may remain a Sanhedrin, Boston is not biblical Jerusalem, and the pope is no vicar of Christ. It really is all about money and power in a world where "a Kennedy is a Kennedy and a priest is a priest" "“ so the tables must not be turned over. ‚  It will be wonderful when Jesus returns and the government will be on His shoulders (Isaiah 9:6); no more politicians and no more religious hypocrisy. That is the way it is going to be, but meanwhile that is not the way it is. ‚   No tables get turned over in Irish Catholic Boston, ‚  after all "“ no matter what they’ve done, aborting babies, molesting children or otherwise - they were all good altar boys. ‚  Mea Maxima Culpa!

J. Jacob Prasch