I hate posting on stuff like this because its so unedifying. But I feel some kind of deontological compulsion.
The Rev'd Elizabeth Kaeton is an ECUSA Priest in the diocese of Newark. She is the president of their standing committee. She is a partnered lesbian. She has a blog. She's an outspoken advocate of the New Religion that is the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. She is apparently a deeply troubled person.
Father Matt Kennedy is the mind behind Stand Firm. Yesterday Ms. Kaeton mused very publicly (on her blog) about Father Kennedy's wife, the Rev'd Anne Kennedy. Ms. Kaeton has decided that Mrs. Kennedy is a domestic slave, and that one day she will doubtless murder her own children, and then lay "their lifeless little bodies in a perfect row on their perfectly made beds in their perfect suburban home", and that the Kennedy children will thereby become martyrs of the feminist cause, unmasking the oppressiveness of the patriarchy at the root of traditional (=hateful) Christianity. Thus Ms. Kaeton's thoughts seem to run.
Read it all here if you like. Its shockingly gross, but also shockingly honest.
I think Ms. Kaeton probably has a diseased mind. I'd guess that she's suffered in life, probably at the hands of men. That's just a guess. But people usually don't think such horrid thoughts, nor give voice to them, out of the blue, nor even calculatedly, nor certainly out of humility, nor ever out of love. But while Ms. Kaeton's own baggage may explain why she'd think such thoughts and record them in a very public venue, it doesn't excuse her behavior. I hope she asks God and the Kennedy's for forgiveness, and I hope she can find the courage and humility to look for the help she needs to deal with the stuff in her consciousness that this vileness bubbled out of.
May God bless Father Matt and Anne Kennedy and their children, and Elizabeth Kaeton and her partner and their families.
3 comments:
This is totally shocking to me, coming from a priest. It blatantly shows what spirit is working in this whole situation. Sad, sad, sad.
Pray for all of them, indeed, especially that her words will not curse this family.
It is shocking. I'm a father of four and I have to say it hit me in the chest when I read Kaeton's cruel words. On the one hand, Fr. Brown is right -- clearly there is some deep pain in Elizabeth's life. I won't go as far as Kaeton herself in ad hoc analysis, but Kaeton's blog writing has always seemed to me to have a kind of desperately cheery tone to it, with the kind of strained sanguine demeanor that could snap at any minute. Ironic, really, given that's exactly the mindset she chose to project on poor Anne, whose writing sounds like that of a thoughtful and busy pregnant mom, who has days where she wants to chuck it all and spend five hours at the spa. I don't know any mom who doesn't have days like that. When you're raising three and a half kids, that (and the requisite broken cereal bowls and runny noses and screaming babies) is a true sign of health and sanity.
On the other hand, I'm outraged that the Church Formerly Known as ECUSA could allow such a person through the ordination process, give her a parish, and elect her to a diocesan standing committee, where she is now President (Newark, natch). I'm additionally amazed that even upon reflection, with the outpouring of indignation from Stand Firm and the deafening silence from the left (even the very liberal priest and deputy Ann Fontaine dropped by to Anne Kennedy's blog to lend support. Now you KNOW a line has been crossed.) Kaeton is not only unrepentant but defiant.
It's just sad all around. Such things should not occur. Such words should not be said; such people should not have parishes. They should have therapy.
(btw, Fr. Brown, great visit Sunday night. We need to make that regular. It would be meet and right.)
I remember Kaeton+ writing somewhere on her blog about having her children removed from her care when she came out and got divorced, the reason for this being that she came out. I suspect that a horrific experience like that would be sufficient provoke someone to feel perpetually victimized on one level or another. And I think there was a time when I might have said the same thing. The only difference is I am a layman... in recovery they say we should ask God to bless them, and change us.
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