Ted Kennedy: The Resurrection Gave Me Hope

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

As Ted Kennedy's True Compass hit bookstores this week, the book's editor and publisher talked with NPR's Terry Gross about the late senator's private side, which was bound up with his Roman Catholic faith. It was hard for Jonathan Karp to get Kennedy to open up. But when he did, Kennedy started talking about the Resurrection:

At one point, he kind of turned to me and he said: So, how do you think it's going? And I told him ... I said, I'm not sure I really understand how you're feeling about things, and I don't understand how you've lived with all of this loss. And he heard that, and he didn't say anything at the lunch table. He moved on. And then he went upstairs and he took a rest. And then he came down about an hour later, and he said there's something I want to talk to you about. And that was when he told me how he had dealt with it all the years. And he described it as being in a state of restlessness and always trying to keep moving so that he could stay ahead of the darkness and not be swallowed by it. And that was really when I felt like I was beginning to understand him.

And then he talked more. And he started talking about how important his faith was, and he was talking about it in very specific language, about how the resurrection gave him hope. And I'd never heard him talk about the resurrection before, and I said to him, I said, you know, have I missed something? I've never really heard you talk this way. And he looked at me with surprise, and he said, well, of course I haven't talked this way. I mean, this is personal. And that's when I realized that the public Ted Kennedy was a lot different from the private Ted Kennedy.

• Read more about Ted Kennedy's faith life.
• See photos of Ted Kennedy throughout his life.
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