The Catholic Card

Some folks (mostly conservative) are crowing over potential conflicts between John Kerry (a Catholic) and the Church, based on his positions on various subjects.

The last time a major political party put forward a Roman Catholic candidate for President, he had to confront bigotry and suspicion that he would be taking orders from Rome. Forty-four years later, the Democrats are poised to nominate another Catholic—another Senator from Massachusetts whose initials happen to be J.F.K.—and this time, the controversy over his religion may develop within the Catholic Church itself. Kerry’s positions on some hot-button issues aren’t sitting well with members of the church elite. Just listen to a Vatican official, who is an American: “People in Rome are becoming more and more aware that there’s a problem with John Kerry, and a potential scandal with his apparent profession of his Catholic faith and some of his stances, particularly abortion.”
But it’s far from clear whether the greater political problem is Kerry’s or the church’s. “I don’t think it complicates things at all,” Kerry told TIME in an interview aboard his campaign plane on Saturday, the first in which he has discussed his faith extensively. “We have a separation of church and state in this country. As John Kennedy said very clearly, I will be a President who happens to be Catholic, not a Catholic President.” Still, when Kennedy ran for President in 1960, a candidate could go through an entire campaign without ever having to declare his position on abortion — much less stem cells, cloning or gay marriage. It was before Roe v. Wade, bioethics, school vouchers, gay rights and a host of other social issues became the ideological fault lines that divide the two political parties and also divide some Catholics from their church.

It raises an interesting conflict because of the nature of the Catholic Church (which formally acts as sacramental intermediary between Man and God, and has a lengthy rule book to prove it) and American (Protestant) tradition of a man’s religion being his own affair.

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.”

Certainly there are plenty of American Catholics who hold personal views on sensitive subjects — abortion, for example — that are in conflict with Church teaching. The difference, of course, is that Kerry is proclaiming those views, and translating them into political action.

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.”

Of course, religiously, that’s a dubious proposition, even not considering Catholic dogma per se. It’s altogether possible — indeed, even necessary and justifiable — for a church to take sanctions against those who flout its doctrines. Tolerance and forgiveness are one thing — treating behavior deemed sinful as nothing all that important is quite another. Freedom of association works both ways. And while there is a distinction between what a public servant’s duty is as an elected representative, and what someone holds personally and privately to be true, that doesn’t give someone a complete pass to say “I was only following the will of the electorate” without bearing some personal responsibility for doing so.

That said, I really don’t see, from a political standpoint, that this is going to turn out to be all that significant. Those who feel, for example, that abortion is a grievous moral sin and a profound social ill, are probably already lined up for Bush, not Kerry.

On the other hand, it’s not the situation that could backfire on Kerry, but his way of handling it. If pushed to a confrontation, how he reacts — defiant, regretful, penitent, angry, whiny, bold, whatever — could alienate and/or attract both Catholics and others.

The same stakes hold true for the Church, of course — trying too hard to make someone toe the line, trying too blatantly to influence the behavior and actions of elected officials, beyond what’s seen as the realm of personal conscience, might generate sympathy for Kerry, and further antipathy toward the hierarchy.