Battling the Bishops
Is Kerry Catholic enough? There's evidence the question is backfiring on his critics
By KAREN TUMULTY / WASHINGTON
FROM:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101040621/ncatholics.htmlIt made only the faintest blip on John Kerry's campaign radar screen— or anyone else's—when an Archbishop from St. Louis, Mo., told a local television station four months ago that the Massachusetts Senator with a staunchly pro-choice voting record should "not present himself for Communion" in that archdiocese. In the frenzied days when Kerry strategists were gearing up for their first nationwide round of primaries, they were far more preoccupied with introducing Kerry to voters as a decorated Vietnam veteran, untangling him from the contradictions of his Senate voting record and figuring out how to dodge the inevitable "Massachusetts liberal" label. In all their internal discussions of the candidate's personal strengths and liabilities, a top adviser recalls, nobody ever even raised what was perhaps the most personal one of all: Kerry's Catholicism and the fact that he could become the first person of his faith since John F. Kennedy to run as the nominee of a major political party.
If that didn't seem like such a big deal then, it does now. A handful of other church leaders have since echoed Archbishop Raymond Burke's declaration that Catholic politicians who vote against church teachings are unfit for the sacrament that more than any other symbolizes a Catholic's ongoing connection to the faith. At least one of those leaders—Colorado Springs, Colo., Bishop Michael Sheridan—has even suggested that unrepentant Catholics who so much as vote for a pro-choice politician should stay away from the Communion rail. Kerry meanwhile insists that he will continue to practice both his faith and his politics as always, and so the watch is on. Can the Democratic nominee travel the country throughout the next five months of Sundays without a priest turning him away? As Kerry campaigns this week in Colorado—a state his strategists have designated one of their top targets in November—more than 250 American Catholic bishops and several Cardinals will be there too, discussing, among other things, how to deal with the increasingly tense relationship between the church and many Catholic politicians.
The bishops will hear from a task force, led by Washington Archbishop Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, that is supposed to give them a set of guidelines on the issue shortly after the election. McCarrick has said he has "not gotten comfortable" with the idea of confronting anyone at the altar, even as he has asserted that Catholics conscious of grave sin should not take Communion. The antiabortion group American Life League responded in early May with full-page newspaper ads in the Washington Times featuring a picture of the crucified Christ and asking, Cardinal McCarrick: are you comfortable now?
That kind of recrimination is also bearing down for the first time on many pro-choice politicians around the country. The pastor of Democratic Senator Dick Durbin's hometown parish in Springfield, Ill.—where Durbin's children attended Catholic school and his daughter was married—announced in April that the Senator could not receive Communion there. Although Durbin had not attended the church regularly for seven years, since he began worshipping near his condo in Chicago, the resulting debate has put him in a difficult spot. He recently declined to give the eulogy at a close friend's funeral for fear that his presence on the altar with the local bishop would create an embarrassing scene. "It's very painful," Durbin told TIME. "It's one of the most painful experiences I've had in public life. You can't really put into words how tough this is to deal with."
<SNIP>
my take: many religious folks think their interpretation of the bible should overide the part where God said even he/ she will wait until the last days to judge.
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