In April 1968, he was awakened at 6 AM by the Headmaster of a Georgetown Catholic boarding school and told a car was waiting to drive him home. The news of his dad’s death, predicted years earlier by his aunt Jackie, was revealed to him.
Later, he went to his dad’s study and smelled the faint odor of his dad’s cologne. He wept as never before. He was 14 when his dad was murdered. He was 8 when his uncle was murdered.
During a recent EWTN interview, “The World Over,” (01/2/25), Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. said he was strongly influenced by the faith of his mother and grandmother: “The centerpiece of my life was Catholicism. We prayed before and after meals, read the Bible every night, and went to Mass at least once daily.
Beginning shortly after his dad’s death and lasting 14 years, Robert Kennedy, Jr. confessed he was addicted to heroin until age 28. “I was living against conscience. It’s what you have to do when you yield to the compulsion of addiction. I didn’t lose my faith. I just pushed God to the periphery of my horizon. God was not a part of my everyday life.”
RFK, Jr. recovered from his addiction by a “profound spiritual realignment. It is the centerpiece of my life now. I pray pretty much all day now.”
“My faith in God gives me a sense of peacefulness.” He compared his life today to a “storm at sea.” On the surface of the storm there is turbulence, turmoil, commotion, confusion, and unrest. “Below the surface, the water is calm. God has shown me how He has calmed the water beneath the storm.”
God reminds us, just as he calmed the terrible storms in the life of Robert Kennedy, Jr., He can calm the storms of life of those who love God and all their neighbors.
“On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” 36 Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. 38 But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
“Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. 40 But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!” Mark 4:35-41.
‘Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.’ 1 Peter 1:13.
Kennedy’s words, “living against conscience,” touched my heart. I downloaded his autobiography, American Values, What I Learned from My Family, 2023. Republican tears filled my eyes as I read about the assignations of John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy, April 28, 1968.
For the first time, I grasped how widespread hatred has been contaminating America from the 1960s to this very day.
“The Vietnam war (1955-1975) exacted enormous human cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died.”
It is as if a significant part of the world is “living against conscience,” has placed God to the periphery of its horizon, and is losing its faith in God.
Can rational people question whether the “sexual revolution,” commonly associated with the 1960s, is causally related to the extreme loss of respect for the authority and reverence of God? Is postmodernism fundamentally more than a repudiation of the past values and faith in God that formed the conscience of western civilization?
“Living against conscience” applies to me and perhaps to you, whether it concerns what we eat, drink, think, or how we behave. Neither the rich nor the poor, the educated or the unschooled, our leaders or their families, neither are without fault.
The prophet Isaiah wrote the following encouraging words approximately 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. These words give us hope as we also truly seek a “profound spiritual realignment”:
“Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.”
– Isaiah 55:6-7
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.
