Some reacted sinfully to Ted Kennedy's Catholic burial, Bishop Morlino says

Sadly, Bishop Morlino has decided to join Cardinal O'Malley and Fr. Rosica in comdemning the faithful Catholics who objected to Ted Kennedy's grandiose spectacle of a Catholic funeral.
It is not the funeral itself we are objecting to, it is not up to us to decide who deserves a Catholic funeral . However , it should have been a PRIVATE funeral.
What is scandalous and objectionable is that Cardinal O'Malley gave a grand public Catholic funeral to someone who spent his entire life publicly defying Church teachings by divorce, a civil marriage and ardent, public support of abortion. Quite frankly, I resent any of our Bishops telling us that is all okay. They are supposed to be teaching and defending true Catholic teachings.

The burial of Senator Ted Kennedy was, for some Catholics, a source of scandal. But in his recent column, Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin explains why, despite the late senator's public and private misdeeds, the reaction of some Catholics to the senator's passing is sinful.

Bishop Morlino begins his weekly column in the Madison Catholic Herald by explaining that a recent period of rest allowed him to watch much of the televised coverage of Senator Kennedy's burial and reflect on the reaction to the senator's life.

Drawing on a growing awareness of his own mortality, the bishop said that he had acquired a better understanding of what Senator Kennedy must have gone through as he neared his last days.

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From the Catechism:

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae," "by the very commission of the offense," and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.