WASHINGTON (CNS): Four decades ago, royalty, heads of state and important government officials filled the Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle in Washington for the funeral Mass of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
Forty years later, almost 800 everyday Catholics from across the region gathered at the cathedral to pray for and remember the slain president, who was the first Catholic to be elected to that office.
They prayed during a Mass of remembrance offered on the anniversary day of President Kennedy’s tragic death.
In his homily, Fr J. Bryan Hehir, who is the outgoing president of Catholic Charities USA, said the Mass was ‘a time to reflect and to pray (in the place where) President Kennedy was entrusted into the hands of God for eternity’.
St Matthew’s rector, Msgr W. Ronald Jameson, was the main celebrant. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, President Kennedy’s youngest brother, and the senator’s wife, Victoria, were also in attendance.
Earlier in the day, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington led a private prayer service for members of the Kennedy family at the Arlington National Cemetery grave site of the slain president.
