Political elite joins with family for Kennedy farewell

BOSTON — The nation's political elite gathered at a Roman Catholic basilica in Edward Kennedy's hometown of Boston and bade farewell to the senator from Massachusetts whose legislative career spanned almost a half century.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden led a Washington delegation of Cabinet officials and lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who attended the two-hour service. Three former presidents, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, also assembled at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help with members of the Kennedy clan, which includes California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is married to the late senator's niece, Maria Shriver.

"The world will long remember" Kennedy as "heir to a weighty legacy, a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; the lion of the U.S. Senate," Obama said of the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy, slain in 1963, and New York's Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was murdered during a 1968 quest for the nation's highest office.

In a tribute to Kennedy's religious faith, the Rev. J. Donald Monan said that the late senator's "zealously private" life of faith and prayer "held the secret to the extraordinary public life of compassion and service."

The body of Kennedy, who died Tuesday at age 77 of brain cancer, was borne to the church by a hearse from where it had lain in repose at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

A steady rain fell as Kennedy's widow, Victoria, and other family members waited outside the basilica as the senator's flag-draped coffin was carried into the church by a military honor guard. A faint aroma of incense permeated the sanctuary as the honor guard carried the casket down the aisle.

Kennedy's daughter, Kara Kennedy, led the congregation in a responsive reading of Psalm 72 with the refrain: "Justice shall flourish in his time and fullness of peace forever."

Ten of Kennedy's grandchildren, nieces and nephews led the congregation in prayers, paraphrasing some of the late senator's most familiar lines. These included Kennedy's plea for universal health-care legislation, now pending in Congress.

"For what my grandpa called the cause of his life, as he said that every American have decent quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege, we pray to the Lord," said Max Allen, one of Kennedy's grandsons. "The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on," said another grandson, Teddy Kennedy.

Obama urged politicians in the church to emulate Kennedy'sability to put aside partisan differences and find common ground.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma played the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 6. During communion, tenor Placido Domingo sang Cesar Franck's "Panis Angelicus." The sound of raindrops could be heard pounding on the church's stainedglass windows.

Those in attendance included Jesse Jackson, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, one of Kennedy's closest collaborators on health-care legislation.

The president and the first lady, Michelle Obama, appeared somber as they entered the packed church. The congregation stood as the president entered the sanctuary. Traffic signs on the highway that Obama's motorcade traveled to the church flashed signs saying "Thanks, Ted."

The church is in Roxbury, a working-class section of Boston where Kennedy had prayed daily for Kara Kennedy's health while she was undergoing treatment for cancer.

Crowds lined up for the security check before 6 a.m. Many storefronts and apartment buildings in the neighborhood displayed large American flags. One storefront posted a large banner adorned with a peace sign read: "Teddy, Your Service Will Be Remembered."

Honorary pallbearers included Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a former Kennedy staff member, and Sens. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts. Another former Kennedy aide, Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury's special master for compensation of executives of financial firms thatreceived U.S. bailout money, was also an honorary pallbearer.

Family members at the funeral, led by Kennedy's widow, included Kennedy's three children, Kara, Edward Kennedy Jr. and Patrick Kennedy, a congressman from Rhode Island; and his niece Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President Kennedy. Also in attendance was Kennedy's first wife, Joan Kennedy, the mother of the couple's children.

Kennedy served in the Senate almost 47 years and was the last surviving son of the political dynasty that included his brothers John, the nation's 35th president, and Robert, who served as attorney general in his brother's Cabinet and later as a New York senator.

After a flight to Washington and a motorcade stop for a brief prayer outside the U.S. Capitol, Kennedy's body was to be buried beside his brothers on a hilltop overlooking the capital city at Arlington National Cemetery.

Information for this article was contributed from Boston by Nicholas Johnston and Tom Moroney of Bloomberg News.