Spiderman
23-05-05, 12:51 PM
New pope was force in efforts to deny Kerry communion during '04 election
By SCOTT SHEPARD
Cox News Service
Thursday, April 21, 2005
WASHINGTON — German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, played an indirect role in the 2004 U.S. election campaign when he directed Catholic bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters such as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
But Kerry, a lifelong Catholic and former altar boy, declined any criticism of the new pope Wednesday, the same course he took last year when the Ratzinger-led intervention of the Vatican highlighted Kerry's support for abortion rights at the height of the contest with President Bush.
Kerry, in a statement from his Senate office, renewed his campaign emphasis on people of faith trying to find common ground despite political differences.
"The election of a new pope is a great moment of hope, renewal and possibility for the Catholic church," Kerry said. The Massachusetts senator expressed hope that the new pope would "reach out to all people everywhere to find common ground ... guiding the faithful in a time of challenge and change across the globe."
Ratzinger found no common ground with abortion rights advocates last June when, in a letter to the U.S. bishops, he stated that Catholics who support abortion rights are guilty of a "grave sin" and are unworthy of communion.
Although he did not mention Kerry or any other person by name, it was widely viewed that he was referring to the Democratic presidential nominee when he said the Catholic sacrament should be denied in "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws."
Further, his letter said any Catholic who votes for a candidate who holds a pro-abortion position is "guilty of formal cooperation in evil" and is likewise "unworthy to present himself for holy communion."
The letter, however, downplayed concerns of Catholics about two issues that the late Pope John Paul II criticized President Bush for supporting.
"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia", Ratzinger wrote. "For example, if a Catholic were at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion."
The recipient of the latter was Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, who had met with Kerry two months earlier to discuss whether there should be church sanctions against politicians who back the Supreme Court ruling granting limited abortion rights to American women.
Following the meeting, McCarrick, the head of a church task force on the issue, told the Associated Press that he was leaning in favor of lesser penalties for abortion rights politicians, including no honorary degrees from Catholic universities or no honors from dioceses.
"I have not gotten to the stage where I'm comfortable in denying the Eucharist," McCarrick told the AP.
Kerry received communion throughout the presidential campaign and continues to do so today, according to his Senate office.
The issue has largely disappeared since Bush's defeat of Kerry, a victory that came, in part, because the president was able to peel away significant numbers of Catholic voters from the Democratic Party base.
The University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics found in a post-election survey that non-Latino Catholics, once a bedrock Democratic constituency, gave a majority of its votes, 53 percent, to Bush, largely because of his appeal to "traditionalist" Catholics. Kerry, on the other hand, was backed by 69 percent of what the study called "modernist" Catholics.
John Green, director of the institute and an expert on politics and religion, said the 2004 election was marked by "strong polarization not only between different religions, as was common in the past, but also within the major religious traditions, a relatively new phenomenon."
That polarization prompted a recent warning from William Dinges, a professor of religious studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, at a national association of diocesan directors of social action.
"We have a 'blue' faith, if you will, and a 'red' faith as much as a community of faith," he said, drawing on the customary use of blue and red to distinguish between Democrats and Republicans.
Scott Shepard's e-mail address is sshepard(at)coxnews.com
By SCOTT SHEPARD
Cox News Service
Thursday, April 21, 2005
WASHINGTON — German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, played an indirect role in the 2004 U.S. election campaign when he directed Catholic bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters such as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
But Kerry, a lifelong Catholic and former altar boy, declined any criticism of the new pope Wednesday, the same course he took last year when the Ratzinger-led intervention of the Vatican highlighted Kerry's support for abortion rights at the height of the contest with President Bush.
Kerry, in a statement from his Senate office, renewed his campaign emphasis on people of faith trying to find common ground despite political differences.
"The election of a new pope is a great moment of hope, renewal and possibility for the Catholic church," Kerry said. The Massachusetts senator expressed hope that the new pope would "reach out to all people everywhere to find common ground ... guiding the faithful in a time of challenge and change across the globe."
Ratzinger found no common ground with abortion rights advocates last June when, in a letter to the U.S. bishops, he stated that Catholics who support abortion rights are guilty of a "grave sin" and are unworthy of communion.
Although he did not mention Kerry or any other person by name, it was widely viewed that he was referring to the Democratic presidential nominee when he said the Catholic sacrament should be denied in "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws."
Further, his letter said any Catholic who votes for a candidate who holds a pro-abortion position is "guilty of formal cooperation in evil" and is likewise "unworthy to present himself for holy communion."
The letter, however, downplayed concerns of Catholics about two issues that the late Pope John Paul II criticized President Bush for supporting.
"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia", Ratzinger wrote. "For example, if a Catholic were at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion."
The recipient of the latter was Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, who had met with Kerry two months earlier to discuss whether there should be church sanctions against politicians who back the Supreme Court ruling granting limited abortion rights to American women.
Following the meeting, McCarrick, the head of a church task force on the issue, told the Associated Press that he was leaning in favor of lesser penalties for abortion rights politicians, including no honorary degrees from Catholic universities or no honors from dioceses.
"I have not gotten to the stage where I'm comfortable in denying the Eucharist," McCarrick told the AP.
Kerry received communion throughout the presidential campaign and continues to do so today, according to his Senate office.
The issue has largely disappeared since Bush's defeat of Kerry, a victory that came, in part, because the president was able to peel away significant numbers of Catholic voters from the Democratic Party base.
The University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics found in a post-election survey that non-Latino Catholics, once a bedrock Democratic constituency, gave a majority of its votes, 53 percent, to Bush, largely because of his appeal to "traditionalist" Catholics. Kerry, on the other hand, was backed by 69 percent of what the study called "modernist" Catholics.
John Green, director of the institute and an expert on politics and religion, said the 2004 election was marked by "strong polarization not only between different religions, as was common in the past, but also within the major religious traditions, a relatively new phenomenon."
That polarization prompted a recent warning from William Dinges, a professor of religious studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, at a national association of diocesan directors of social action.
"We have a 'blue' faith, if you will, and a 'red' faith as much as a community of faith," he said, drawing on the customary use of blue and red to distinguish between Democrats and Republicans.
Scott Shepard's e-mail address is sshepard(at)coxnews.com