Celebration of Ethel Kennedy’s life recalls her strong faith, human rights work, humor

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — In the majestic Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington during an Oct. 16 celebration of life for Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the singer Stevie Wonder honored his friend by singing the Our Father accompanied by a harpist, and then leading the congregation in a rousing version of “Isn’t She Lovely.”

During the nearly three-hour memorial service, three U.S. presidents, her children and grandchildren, a former Speaker of the House and two farmworker leaders who spoke testified to that quality of Ethel Kennedy, who died Oct. 10 at age 96.

They remembered the widow of Robert F. Kennedy as the matriarch of her large family, as a national icon who took up the torch of her late husband’s work for human rights and social justice, and as a woman of faith and humor.

Welcoming the congregation of 1,000 people filling the cathedral, Joseph Kennedy III, one of Ethel Kennedy’s grandchildren, said the gathering offered a time to celebrate “our beloved matriarch and without a doubt, the world’s greatest grandma.”

He opened his remarks by addressing “Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President” — President Joe Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who sat side-by-side in a front pew.

“My grandmother’s life was a life fully lived,” said Joseph Kennedy III, adding that she regarded every day as an opportunity to learn, to love and to battle for what is right.

Moments earlier, Jesuit Father Don MacMillan, a family friend, had offered prayers before dozens of Ethel Kennedy’s family members accompanied her casket down the cathedral’s center aisle.

Her casket was placed in front of the sanctuary at the spot where the casket of her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been placed at his requiem Mass on Nov. 25, 1963, after his assassination.

The service’s opening hymn, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,” with music drawn from Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” reflected the mood that unfolded as the speakers and guest musicians honored Ethel Kennedy’s life and legacy.

Besides Wonder, musicians at the service in Washington included Kenny Chesney, Sting and Nova Tate. Their performances were interspersed between speakers.

Joseph Kennedy III, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts who is now a U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland, said his grandmother’s approach to welcoming varied guests to her family home for dinner — “whoever you were, there was always a seat for you” — also was shown in her respect and advocacy for those in need.

“She used actions and words to make the world a better place,” he said.

Obama in his remarks praised Ethel Kennedy as his “dear friend” and said she “alongside her husband Bobby helped tap the idealism of an entire generation.”

After the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Ethel Kennedy raised their 11 children, and Obama noted that as the family’s matriarch, she “instilled a commitment to justice in her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and helped raise a legion of change makers and public servants.”

Obama — who awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ethel Kennedy in 2014 — pointed out that after her husband’s death, she did not withdraw from their shared work, and she founded the Robert F. Kennedy organization for human rights and was a passionate advocate for civil rights, juvenile justice, protecting the environment and many other causes.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told the congregation Ethel Kennedy’s death marked a personal loss for her family and friends and a “profound loss for our country.” She called her friend of more than six decades “a national treasure.”

Pelosi praised Ethel Kennedy’s “deep faith in God and in the goodness of others.” She added, “God truly blessed her family and America with her faithfulness. … This was an extraordinarily special God-given person to us.”

Then Ethel Kennedy’s eldest child, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, spoke, telling how their mother brought her and two of her young brothers to Senate hearings to see their father investigate the mob. The children also visited him at work when he served as the U.S. attorney general.

Their mother, she said, raised her children to play together in sports, to discuss current events, history and politics and to pray regularly. Summers at Hyannis Port in Cape Cod included morning Mass, and horseback riding, sailing, swimming and playing baseball or softball. “Our days ended with Bible readings and the rosary,” she said.

The next speaker, Martin Luther King III, praised Ethel Kennedy for living “a luminous life of faith, love and service.” He said she “answered the call and rose to the challenges of God’s plan for her life.”

King — who formerly served as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — noted that his family and the Kennedy family have had “a shared journey.”

“Fate and history knitted us together, and respect and love have kept us together,” he said.

Clinton spoke next, offering thanks to Ethel Kennedy “for the family you built, and the untold families you inspired.”

A lesson drawn from her life, he said, is that “the God she worshipped wanted all of us to be more other-directed, to think more how our works impacted other people … how our lives showed what we are for or against.”

Clinton said Ethel Kennedy was an embodiment “of the love St. Paul writes about in First Corinthians, not romantic love but agape love, love for your fellow human beings.”

He also highlighted her sense of humor, noting a valentine that she sent to him and other friends one year, that showed a picture of her surrounded by photos of all of her family members cut out into heart shapes, with the message, “Roses are red, violets are blue. I’m surrounded by love, but there’s still room for you.”

The next speaker, Rory Kennedy, the youngest of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s 11 children who is adocumentary filmmaker and producer:, reflected on how she was born in December 1968, six months after her father’s death. “Mommy was all I ever had,” she said. “It had become just us, all of us and Mommy. We were in it together.”

In 2012, Rory Kennedy directed, produced and narrated a documentary on her mother titled “Ethel” that is streaming on HBO Max. She said that in making that film, studying her mother’s life and in interviewing her mother and siblings, “I learned the central role mom played in all that my father accomplished and in all that he became… Her support and her love lifted him up.”

About two dozen of Ethel Kennedy’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren offered prayers and reflections to honor her, which were followed by two more speakers: Lucas Benitez, who co-founded the Coalition of Immokalee Workers that defends the human rights of farmworkers, and Kerry Kennedy, the seventh of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s children, who serves as the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization.

The final speaker was Biden, who noted that in the Oval Office he placed sculpture busts of his two heroes, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. He noted, “Ethel Kennedy is a hero in her own right.”

Addressing the Kennedy family, he said, “The Biden family is here for you, as you’ve always been (there) for us.”

The president added, “My message to all of us today, to the entire country, is to look to Ethel Kennedy’s faith. … For over 50 years, with an iron will and moral courage, she gave everything she had. We’re a better nation, a better world, because of Ethel Kennedy.”

At the end of the service, Father MacMillan offered a closing prayer and presided at the commendation, as Thomas Stehle, the cathedral’s director of music ministries, sang the “Song of Farewell” that is typically sung at the end of Catholic funerals.

As the Kennedy family members escorted Ethel Kennedy’s casket down the cathedral’s center aisle and then carried it outside, the congregation sang “America the Beautiful” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

A funeral Mass for Ethel Kennedy was celebrated Oct. 14 at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Mass. She is survived by nine children, 34 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. Besides her husband, she was preceded in death by two of the couple’s sons, David and Michael.

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