Within a year, Joe II announced he would not seek reelection to the House seat he had held for 12 years. ” The book, “Shattered Faith,” featured on its cover a wedding picture of a lightly smiling Sheila and a broadly beaming Joe II. Four years later, in 1997, Sheila wrote her book about the subject, casting herself as a well-meaning divorced mom, with no serious resentment against her ex, who nonetheless refused to be tossed in the dumpster by her former husband and the Catholic Church: “My concern was for my children’s moral development. Nobody actually believes it.”ĭamage was done, and kept on being done. When she presented the facts to her former husband, he replied, according to her account, “I don’t believe this stuff. Sheila, the non-Catholic, set about studying the matter, and discovered that an annulment meant the marriage had never existed in the eyes of God. Joe II, seemingly oblivious to his privilege, regarded annulment as simply the Catholic way of divorce. It was well-known that the church had been granting annulments to certain rich, powerful Catholics who wished to remarry. To Joe II’s apparent surprise, Sheila objected-so viscerally that upon receiving his written request she was sick to her stomach. The only way to do so and remain in good standing with the church was to claim that their marriage, despite the presence of twin sons, had been invalid from the start. He was Catholic his ex-wife, Sheila Rauch Kennedy, was not. Kennedy II, the anointed successor to the family dynasty, tried to get their marriage annulled. ![]() His parents had been divorced for two years when his father, U.S. Kennedy III was in high school when his mother wrote the book that effectively destroyed his father’s political career. It’s that nice, earnest young Joe Kennedy somehow allowed himself to get tangled up in a tired mystique that was ripe for a backlash and offensive even to some of his closest relatives. The irony on Tuesday was not that the Kennedys finally got the electoral slap in the face, the comeuppance, that they managed to evade after sex scandals and Chappaquiddick. She, and he, knew that if the Kennedy tradition of public service were to continue it would require a different kind of standard-bearer. He was different from other Kennedys in part because he was raised to be, by his divorced mother. But he was also kind and deferential to his elders, unassuming in his manner, studious in his approach to politics and warmly conventional in his personal life. He had all the family’s looks and charm, and more native intelligence than most of his kin. What made the 39-year-old grandson of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy special was that he wasn’t like the Kennedys of the ’60s, at least in personality. And much of what remains in photos and video clips of the once-famous Kennedy style is obnoxious to the public mood: Sleekly dressed men with sometimes leering eyes, captive spouses, cocktails and cigarettes. Even fewer feel the powerful sense of attachment that followed the Kennedy assassinations-the belief that this family’s name was synonymous with enlightened public service. Only voters old enough for retirement have real-time memories of the Kennedy administration. It’s been more than 52 years since the murder of Robert Kennedy, and 11 since Ted’s death from a brain tumor. JFK’s assassination will have its 57th anniversary this fall. Those victories were, however, a long time ago. told political neophyte Edward Moore Kennedy that if his name had been Edward Moore, his Senate candidacy “would be a joke.” The joke, of course, was on Eddie McCormack, who lost the Democratic primary, 69-30. In a 1962 debate, Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. ![]() Kenneth Keating, a 64-year-old Rockefeller Republican, without even moving to the state until shortly before the election. Joe Kennedy’s grandfather, Robert, famously ended the 18-year political career of New York Sen. The 74-year-old Markey, who was first elected to the House in 1972, was supposed to be the type of proud, uncharismatic incumbent whom Kennedys routinely dispatch to retirement homes or ambassadorships.
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