(UNDATED)”I recognize my own shortcomings — the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them. I believe that each of us as individuals must not only struggle to make a better world, but to make ourselves better, too.”

— The late Sen. Edward Kennedy, in a 1991 speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government

Ted Kennedy was a complicated man with a complicated life.

Deeply faithful and deeply faulted. Fierce and loyal. Dangerous and wise. Strong and yet felled by all-too-human weaknesses.

It is the complexity of his story and his character that made him such a compelling person, a heroic figure in an arena where they are few and far between.

I grew up in an Irish-American family in New England where the Kennedy clan was like royalty. They were icons — culturally, politically and in some ways spiritually.

My parents were married the year John F. Kennedy was assassinated. As a child, I was aware of the depths of tragedy the Kennedy family endured time and time again, and I was taught to admire the family’s resilience in the face of despair. The way they kept picking themselves up and soldiering on, their commitment to public service, their devotion to caring for the poor, the weak and those on the fringes of our society.

For all of my life, Ted Kennedy was the patriarch of the Kennedy clan — an avuncular, kind and fun-loving Irishman who forged into political issues with dead seriousness, but never took himself too seriously.

Ted Kennedy made many mistakes. The most infamous occurred 40 years ago when he drove his car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Mass. He was able to swim safely to shore, while his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. He neglected to report the accident until the next morning. A reckless and selfish act of cowardice, to be sure.

“I think he was chastened by it,” said Randall Balmer, a professor of religious history at Barnard College in New York and author of “God in the White House.”

“He did have his period later in life — this kind of wild period — but he repented of that as well and then settled down.”

Kennedy’s life was marked by tragedy and loss. Two of his siblings died in plane crashes. Two more brothers were cut down in the prime of life by assassins’ bullets. Three of his nephews died tragically and too young, in a drug overdose, a skiing accident, and in yet another plane crash. (Ted Kennedy himself survived a plane crash the year after President Kennedy was assassinated.)

He weathered scandal and the divorce from his first wife, Joan, after 24 years of marriage, substance abuse, chronic back pain (from the plane crash in 1964), and, finally, brain cancer.

It’s a litany of despair that would crush a lesser man. But Kennedy kept going with a stubborn faith — in God and in the common good — while carrying the burden of grief and the mantle of responsibility for a family and, in many ways, a nation.

Ted Kennedy was Roman Catholic. Whether he was a “good” Catholic is, of course, a matter of opinion. Unquestionably pro-choice and pro-contraception, a supporter of stem cell research and same-sex marriage (all big no-no’s in orthodox Catholicism), he also was undeniably a champion of social justice, leading the fight for universal health care, workers’ rights, arms control and peacemaking — most notably in Northern Ireland where he was instrumental in crafting a lasting peace.

He opposed the war in Iraq and fought for the rights of the disabled, the elderly, the mentally ill and prison inmates to practice their religion with access to pastoral care. He helped craft legislation ensuring that airplane crash victims’ families (including the families of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks) received the spiritual and emotional support they need.

“Catholic hierarchy always wanted to hammer him about his stand on abortion, but he embodied Catholic social teaching much more fully than any other politician I can think of in the national arena,” Balmer said.

When I think of Ted Kennedy, I remember Chappaquiddick, but I recall something else. Something more powerful and, hopefully, more indelible.

Ted Kennedy refused to be defined by his worst moments.

None of us wants to be reduced to the sum total of our mistakes, deadly or otherwise.

Yet, it’s uncommon to be able to rise above them, without becoming paralyzed by guilt or regret, and devote your life to making the world a more just place.

(Cathleen Falsani is the author of “Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace” and the upcoming “The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers.”)