A few days ago I mentioned some of the debate raging over Ted Kennedy, and the conflicts some are facing when it comes to offering up prayers for him and his family.

Now Elizabeth Scalia (a.k.a. The Anchoress) has provided a thoughtful — and no less controversial — essay over at Inside Catholic:

The Kennedy Saga, in all its triumph and trouble, presents Catholicism to the world in all of its messy imperfections and abundant mercies. While we might wish for public Catholics to live lives of such transparent holiness as to edify a nation and promote Catholicism as a showcase of saintliness, they too often instead reveal the Church as the hospital for sinners in chronic need, who are never turned away.

The Kennedys are neither holier nor more wicked than other families, but where most of us commit and repent of our mortifying sins in relative obscurity, the veil of privacy granted to them is excruciatingly diaphanous; it tempts others to presume knowledge of the state of souls, and since the days of public penances are long past, there is further temptation to assume an arrogance that may or may not exist. Is it arrogance and entitlement that keeps a public man of public failings turning, and turning again, to the Mass, the sacraments, and the tribe, or is it a kind of humility, a declaration of need that supersedes riches and power and all the consolations of the world?

Ted Kennedy belongs to his family, to the Catholic Church, and — as representative of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — to the United States of America. But before he belonged to any of those, he belonged to God, and it is to God he eventually stands. If we knew nothing of him beyond that one unalterable fact, it would be enough to warrant our heartfelt prayers on his behalf. With all we do (and do not) know of God’s Ted Kennedy — and all we know of ourselves, of our own sins, our humiliations and triumphs, our public moments of indiscretion and our private agonies — our instincts to prayer should not stumble before the shame of another, or we shame ourselves.

The crucible is a melting pot in which materials of varying grades and purities are rendered into something fiery and fluid that can be poured, molded, cured, and formed. As the Kennedy family is consumed by its heat, some of us may want to pick carefully through our own embers with a good old-fashioned examination of conscience, to recognize “what we have done, and what we have failed to do.” Because sooner or later, it will be our turn in the crucible, and our own beams and splinters will feed it.

Check out the whole thing — and the numerous comments that follow (including some from Your Humble Blogger).