Kennedys gather to mourn
By The Associated Press
CENTERVILLE, Mass. (AP) -- In happier days, the legion of Kennedy family members and friends came to Our Lady of Victory Church to celebrate events such as the wedding of Caroline Kennedy.

Saturday, the sanctuary trimmed with Cape Cod gray shingles was the setting for a more somber gathering, the funeral of Michael Kennedy. The 39-year-old father of three died New Year's Eve after skiing into a tree in Aspen, Colo.

The celebrants for today's Mass included the Rev. Michael Kennedy, a namesake and parish priest from Dungarvan County, Waterford, Ireland.

Among those expected to cram into the oak pews were actress Glenn Close, a family friend, and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is married to Maria Shriver, Kennedy's cousin. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, a good friend of the Kennedys, was to represent President Clinton at the funeral Saturday.

Kennedy was to be buried in Brookline, near his brother David, who died of a drug overdose in 1984.

Several hundred people made a pilgrimage Friday to the Kennedy compound in nearby Hyannis Port to pay their last respects to Kennedy, the middle son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy.

Just before nightfall, three Kennedy siblings, Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass.; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, lieutenant governor of Maryland; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, walked out with other relatives to make their first public comment on the week's events.

"The last two days have been very difficult ones for every member of our family, but we've been buoyed and supported by the tens of thousands of calls and communications from friends around the world," Robert Kennedy Jr. said.

"Say a prayer for us," added Townsend.

The last year of Kennedy's life started with promise. He was looking forward to helping his brother Joseph run for governor of Massachusetts, a role in the family that often serves as a proving ground for future political campaigns.

A Harvard graduate, Kennedy had already won praise as a businessman as chair of Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit company that provides home heating fuel to the poor. He also was active in charity work in Massachusetts and in Africa, in particular working to raise awareness about the dangers of handguns.

But soon the brother who had spent most of his life behind the scenes burst into the headlines when an alleged affair with his family's teen-age baby sitter became public. Authorities considered filing statutory rape charges, but the woman -- by then 19 -- refused to cooperate with prosecutors.

The disclosure followed the news that Kennedy was separating from his wife of 16 years, Vicki, the daughter of sportscaster Frank Gifford. The couple had three children, Michael Jr., 14, Kyle, 13 and Rory, 10.

The year ended with Kennedy's death as he played his family game of football on skis. Authorities said he died of severe head and neck injuries suffered in the accident on Aspen Mountain, a posh resort in the Colorado Rockies.

John Rosenthal, a friend who, along with Kennedy, founded the group Stop Handgun Violence, on Friday walked Kennedy's two dogs outside the family compound. One was a Jack Russell terrier named Cracker Jack, the other a Labrador puppy named Bolivar.

Stopping to speak with reporters, he said: "It tortured Michael the impact the last year has had on his children and, secondarily, his ability to be out front."

The Rev. Donald MacMillan, a family friend who officiated at Caroline's 1986 wedding, said Ethel's faith will help carry her this tragedy. "For Ethel to have to endure such a loss is sad. But Ethel is a very religious woman, and she will do her best to carry the rest of them," MacMillan said. "The most tragic thing of all is his three children, all fatherless now."

Earlier story: Kennedys had been warned about danger of mixing football, skiing

By JENNIFER MEARS

Associated Press Writer

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) -- The Kennedys had been warned about playing around on the ski slopes, about the danger of mixing impromptu football games with one of winter's most beloved but demanding pastimes. The decades-old family tradition was shattered by the death of Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of the late Robert F. Kennedy.

He died of head and neck injuries after an accident on an Aspen Mountain ski slope on New Year's Eve. Kennedy, by all accounts an excellent skier, apparently lost control of one ski and crashed headfirst into a tree.

Kennedy had reportedly caught a snowpacked water bottle being tossed around as a makeshift football at the time of the accident. He and a number of family members and friends were on a slope for intermediate skiers called Copper Bowl, skiing at the end of the day when conditions often become icy. "I was in the middle of the run about 15 feet away from him," a 30-year-old New Yorker who spoke on the condition of anonymity said in today's Boston Herald. "All of a sudden I saw him hit. It happened in a microsecond."

Dr. Robert Kurtzman, a forensic pathologist, said initial toxicology tests showed there was no alcohol or drugs in Kennedy's body. Kennedy had said last year that he was battling alcoholism. The Kennedys often brought their well-known family sport to the slopes of Aspen Mountain and had been told before about the dangers of playing football on skis, a former Aspen Skiing Co. employee told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Thursday.

Kennedy's mother, Ethel, was among the relatives vacationing in Aspen, where the family has been coming since at least 1962, when Robert F. Kennedy came to the resort for a speech. It wasn't clear whether she witnessed her son's accident. The New York Post, quoting anonymous sources, said today it was she who arranged to have the water bottle taken to the top of the mountain.

The accident happened after the resort's lifts had closed for the day and most skiers had made their final run to the base of the mountain. Several skiers said they saw the Kennedy group playing football on the slope, even videotaping the game in the dwindling light.

"They were just out having a fun time," skier Scott Womack told Denver television station KUSA. "They'd bump into each other but it wasn't like hard. ... They were laughing." Another skier, Ted Widen, thought the group was acting dangerously.

"As we tried skiing by them, one of the lead people, I guess he was going after the ball or whatever, almost hit one of my friends," he told NBC's "Today" show this morning. "And I yelled to them, 'If you come near us again, I will kill you myself.' They were reckless."

Writer Couri Hay told the New York Daily News that after the accident, Kennedy's sister Rory tried to revive her brother, crying,"Stay with us, Michael!" Kennedy's children, ages 10, 13 and 14, kneeled in prayer, Hay said.

Paramedics began rescue efforts four minutes after the accident. Michael Ferrara, medical coordinator for Aspen Mountain Ski Patrol, was the first to arrive at the scene, where 15 to 20 people were yelling for help.

The ski patrol placed a collar around Kennedy's neck and immobilized him on a backboard. He was taken down the mountain on a toboggan as darkness fell.

On the way down, paramedics lost his pulse and began administering CPR again. Ferrara said Kennedy regained his pulse at Aspen Valley Hospital, but he died about 90 minutes after the accident.

His body was taken to Hyannis Port, Mass., on Thursday, where grieving family members prepared for another funeral.

Kennedy, the sixth of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's 11 children, headed Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit organization that supplies heating fuel to the poor, and managed his uncle Edward Kennedy's Senate re-election campaign in 1994. He made headlines last year when authorities investigated allegations that he had had an affair with an underage baby sitter. The young woman, now 19, declined to press charges.

At least three other people have died at Colorado ski resorts this season, the latest a 15-year-old snowboarder killed Thursday at Breckenridge.