Kerry Kennedy speaks at a Harris-Walz campaign event in Phoenix Aug. 28, 2024. (Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)
by John Dear
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On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," I speak with my friend Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Center for Human Rights. A lifelong human rights activist and lawyer, she authored Being Catholic Now, as well as Speak Truth to Power, Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope, and the forthcoming Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy.
The seventh of Ethel and Robert Kennedy's 11 children, Kerry has devoted more than 40 years to the pursuit of equal justice, and the promotion and protection of basic rights around the world on a range of issues. She has led hundreds of human rights delegations and regularly provides commentary on television. For 10 years, she served as chair of the Amnesty International USA Leadership Council. A graduate of Boston College Law School, she lives in Massachusetts.
In the podcast, Kerry talks about her parents and her human rights work at the Kennedy Human Rights Center. Her team of lawyers sues governments around the world that are abusing human rights. They usually have 40 cases going at a time, and have never lost a case. They also work to decrease mass incarceration and abuses committed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as work to stop violence against women, and Indigenous and marginalized people around the world. She tells about her recent trip to the notorious violent prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has been sending hundreds of people.
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On her brother Robert Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services, she says, "All saints are also sinners. I've learned from my faith that you can hold two truths in your hands at the same time. I love my brother with all my heart, and I completely disagree with him on almost everything. We need now more than ever to treat people we disagree with love."
"The words that ring most true to me are, 'Love one another.' Whenever I'm in trouble, wondering what to do next, that's what I go to — how can I love others? I fail at it 50 times a day, but that's the way. We can all do something to make things better for others."
