To many American Catholics, Aug. 29 was an even darker day than the day Notre Dame University chose to present an honorary law degree to our president. America's president opposes many of the tenets of the Catholic faith.

Deception triumphed truth at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica as the foremost nominally Catholic proponent of the right-to-choose-the-killing-of-the-preborn was eulogized and "canonized" in a funeral "celebration" almost unrecognizable by its trappings.

It is to be hoped that a deathbed conversion set right what a lifetime of denial had failed to do. But none was acknowledged in the service. Instead Sen. Ted Kennedy's lifetime activities were glorified by all, even by the clergy in unashamed fashion.

The staging and sanctioning of this event in the manner that unfolded has set back America's pro-life efforts by decades, causing, sadly, another 50 million humans never to experience the sights of the Stars and Stripes flying over the Capitol or around the base of the Washington Monument.

Bill McCarthy Jr.

Sun City Hilton Head