This past week was the 57th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a young woman who somehow found herself in a car driven by a drunk who just happened to be the brother of a dead president.

Tragically, she has become an asterisk in the larger narrative of the so-called “Lion of the Senate,” Ted Kennedy.

Mary Jo drowned when Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile off the bridge into the water off of Chappaquiddick, trapping her in the passenger side.

While he was able to extricate himself from the crash, she died of asphyxiation. He later said he’d tried to save her by diving in numerous times with no success.

He then went back to the cottage he was renting, and told some friends what had happened. They allegedly went to the site of the crash and also tried to rescue Mary Jo, but couldn’t locate the body or the car.

The Lion of the Senate then went to bed and only reported the incident the next morning. By that point, Mary Jo had died.

Autopsies showed she was probably alive for five hours after the crash, struggling for air. It’s very likely if the police had been called when it happened, she could have survived.

But she did not, nor did Kennedy’s hopes of becoming president.

For many years, that was considered the great tragedy of Chappaquiddick, that the U.S. was deprived of another Kennedy presidency because of that one, albeit terrible, mistake.

It was as if Mary Jo was being blamed for erasing the great and glorious destiny of the youngest of Joe and Rose’s kids.

I remember as a child hearing that very same thing from relatives who idolized the Kennedys. When you grow up in a family filled with the descendants of blue-collar immigrants, you cannot avoid the mythology of Camelot.

Al Smith might have been the first Catholic to make it big on the political stage, but other than getting a dinner named after him, the shadow of the Kennedys and their ubiquitous clan has always dimmed his glory.

That’s because they were Hollywood as much as they were “Cape Cawd,” and seduced America with their charm and toothy good looks.

I never fell for the Kennedy charm, despite the fact that I loved Jackie. In fact, it’s probably because I loved our former first lady that I could not stand the clan who connected her to history.

She was so different, so elegant, so white lace curtain as opposed to shanty. She stood out among the crew as a ruby among garnets.

I also had a problem with the Kennedys because they typified the sort of hypocritical Catholic who attacks conservatives for their transgressions but has no problem whatsoever excusing her own sins.

I knew Catholics like that growing up, including my father’s mother who would have plucked out her two nearsighted eyes before voting for a Republican.

I once asked her if she thought that the Kennedys were good people, and she did what most of that sort of person does: pivoted to “but Nixon, but Reagan, but, but …” I can only imagine what she would have thought and said about the current occupant of the White House.

You might be saying that there is a lot of immorality on the right, and indeed there is. Names come flooding to mind, including Ken Paxton, Jim Jordan, Stephen Miller, George Santos, Lauren Boebert and a host of other ghouls.

Some of them might even share my faith and swing a rosary every now and then.

But I don’t look at them and excuse their horrible acts. I would hope that Catholic conservatives are swift to condemn these terribly flawed brothers and sisters in Christ as often and as publicly as I do.

But where are the Catholic progressives who condemn Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for their sins, the greatest one of course being their attachment to abortion?

Where is the pope, the Villanova one, when Jews in America and around the world are victims of antisemitic acts? Where are the Catholic nuns who are rightfully speaking out about ICE excesses but say little to nothing when prosecutors like Philly DA Larry Krasner cover for criminals by manipulating the process?

It’s not all about my faith and my people.

But remembering the tragedy of Mary Jo Kopechne this week just reminded me that a lot of people have a troubling level of tolerance for their own monsters, but are the first to throw stones at the neighbors they don’t like.

Mary Jo is a “j'accuse” toward a very cowardly Lion, and his mediocre supporters, including two generations of New Englanders who kept sending him back to the political den.

Copyright 2026 Christine Flowers