CHOOSE:

A Test of Kerry's Faith: The candidate's policies are at odds with church canon. Will there be a price to pay? (KAREN TUMULTY AND PERRY BACON JR., Apr. 05, 2004, TIME)

Kerry and other Catholic politicians have long argued that their religious beliefs need not influence their actions as elected representatives. That position is what provoked New York's Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor in 1984 to castigate New York Governor Mario Cuomo and Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, who are both pro-choice.

If anything, the church is getting tougher. The Vatican issued last year a "doctrinal note" warning Catholic lawmakers that they have a "grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them." When Kerry campaigned in Missouri in February, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke publicly warned him "not to present himself for Communion"—an ostracism that Canon Law 915 reserves for "those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin." Kerry was scheduled to be in St. Louis last Sunday, and told TIME, "I certainly intend to take Communion and continue to go to Mass as a Catholic." [...]

Most Catholic officials expect that the church's response to Kerry's candidacy will vary from diocese to diocese. You may not see many Catholic bishops appearing at Kerry photo ops this campaign season, and there's a possibility of some uncomfortable moments on the trail. "All you need is a picture of Kerry going up to the Communion rail and being denied, and you've got a story that'll last for weeks," says Father Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America.

For now, theologians say, Kerry's conduct is principally a matter between the candidate and his own Archbishop. Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley has given him Communion in the past; the Senator took the sacrament at O'Malley's installation last July. More recently, however, O'Malley has said that Catholic politicians who do not vote in line with church teachings "shouldn't dare come to Communion." But between the gay-marriage debate in Massachusetts and his efforts to repair the damage from the sexual-abuse scandal that began in his archdiocese, O'Malley already has a plateful of controversy. Kerry, for his part, is planning to avoid stirring any up. "I don't tell church officials what to do," he says, "and church officials shouldn't tell American politicians what to do in the context of our public life."

Senator Kerry's position, like that of all putatively Catholic politicians who are permissive on social issues, is patently absurd. The Church defines the morality of its members. If you can't accept that then you aren't a communicant.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 28, 2004 1:37 PM