The Bishops' Election Intervention

...Louis who are pro-choice and have said on the record that they believe the archbishop has crossed the line in possibly affecting the election," said Jim Orso, spokesman for the Archdiocese of St...

...Eighty-seven percent of the Catholics polled said the bishops' positions would not influence their vote in the election...

...The National Catholic Reporter wrote about a June 4 meeting at the Vatican between Bush and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano in which Bush said, "Not all the bishops are with me" on cultural issues...

...Catholic public officials who are acting consistently to support abortion on demand risk making themselves "cooperators in evil in a public manner," reads the report...

...The church's sharp focus on a single issue, one as hot as abortion rights, raises the question: Are bishops just doing their jobs in guiding their flock...

...The group claims that as a nonprofit organization, the Catholic Church must follow government rules that forbid nonprofits from endorsing candidates for public office...

...Louis, take the arguments further...

...There's always an election...

...According to Frances Kissling, the head of the 10,000-member lay advocacy group Catholics for Free Choice, the current effort by bishops is "an unprecedented level of attack on Catholic politicians...

...And come November 2, those twenty-seven million private moments could decide the next four years of our future...

...Furthermore, according to a May survey released by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut, two-thirds of Catholics disapprove of pressure from bishops-particularly the threats to deny Kerry communion- and believe that any politician's religious beliefs regardless of party or issue should "be a private matter, not subject to public discussion...

...In the 2000 election, twenty-seven million Catholics cast their ballots...

...But this year, the pronouncements are even more explicit...

...He then supersized the photos and placed them on giant poster boards to carry at anti-abortion protests...

...Believing that they, and the people who served them the sacrament, were in violation of church rules, O'Neill grabbed his camera, tracked down politicos like former Governor Gray Davis and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at their churches, and snapped photos as they ate the Communion host and drank the Communion wine...

...That's quite a bit different from telling people who to vote for...

...Bishop Sheridan's letter is code language that says, 'Re-elect Bush and vote Republican,'" said the Reverend Barry W. Lynn, Americans United's executive director, in a written statement on the issue...

...The U.S...

...Sheridan is using a form of religious blackmail to steer votes toward the GOP...

...To those who say that the church is sticking its nose into politics, every church and every citizen has a right to speak up for civil rights, and that's what this is about...

...Since President Bush's views are in sync with the majority of Catholics, he's had significant success in winning Catholic support this election, and we've been able to build on that support," said Tara Wall, press secretary for the Republican National Committee's outreach office...

...The group cites an IRS directive from April that noted, "Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition of section 501(c)(3...

...Some individual bishops, like Archbishop Raymond Burke of St...

...But his death penalty position and his launching of the Iraq War, which the Pope has decried repeatedly, should give him little standing...

...Meanwhile, 67 percent of Catholic voters stated they are opposed to abortion in most or all cases...

...Sheridan's pronouncement inspired, in turn, a complaint to the IRS by the Washington-based group Americans United for Separation of Church and State...

...Or are they crossing the line separating church and state...

...He went on an even more unusual campaign: a personal effort to prove that pro-choice Catholic politicians were receiving Holy Communion at Masses throughout the state...

...A major report entitled "Catholics in Political Life" extends the directives and states that it's a serious sin for Catholics to vote for pro-choice candidates...

...He has responded that he did not mean to affect it, but was just letting Catholics know what they should about pro-choice and where the church stands on it...

...John O'Neill is a conservative, by-the-book Roman Catholic who sports "Rock for Life" T-shirts and enthusiastically lets you know when he thinks something is "kickass...

...The bishops are damned if they do and damned if they don't speak up," said O'Neill...

...The IRS should look into this immediately...

...A one-page bilingual summary of the report was released to millions of Catholics around the country, with Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony ordering it placed in the newsletters of all L.A-area churches...

...The church teaches that every person should be a contributing member of society for the good of society as much as able and that involves being involved in the civic life of one's country, educating oneself on issues, and doing your civic duty to vote," said Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese...

...Because of the fact that the bishops take conservative stands on "life issues" such as abortion, euthanasia, and federal funding for Third World contraceptive programs while espousing mostly liberal views against the death penalty, the war in Iraq and the right of workers to unionize, politicians of all stripes try to find a way to look good in the bishops' eyes...

...This has made it more difficult for Catholic voters to understand the full range of issues that have been identified by the [bishops] as priorities for public life...

...Twenty-four pro-choice Catholic politicians, led by Senator Dick Durbin, are issuing their own report highlighting their voting records on issues important to the bishops, including labor rights and opposition to the Iraq War and the death penalty...

...There certainly are some politicians in and around St...

...We totally support the bishops' and other religious leaders' right to speak out on public issues, and they have a right to be wrong...

...Furthermore, he added that such a voter would have to experience "true repentance" and absolution by going to confession before they could receive Communion themselves...

...Just shepherd and lead people, don't worry about it, say the others...

...Everyone knows Bush and Kerry differ on the issue of abortion...

...Each election year, the 414 members of the bishops' conference feel a responsibility to issue reports and statements on a broad array of moral and social issues that affect nearly every aspect of daily life...

...But there's never a safe year to take a stand...

...President Bush has been hyping his anti-abortion views with the nation's bishops and the Vatican itself...

...Unfortunately, recent media attention has focused on one or two priorities of the Catholic Church while obscuring others," said Durbin in June as he issued his scorecard...

...The church, and any institution, has a duty and a right to stand up for those people who aren't able to stand up for themselves, and that's the whole reason the Catholic Church and many other people of good will stand up for the unborn," said Starrs...

...However, there are some principles, some ethical guidelines, that generally govern the way an organization participates in public debate, and one of those is that an organization generally reflects the views of its members," said Kissling...

...Pasadena-based Carl Kozlowski, who previously interviewed Daniel Berrigan for The Progressive, has written for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles CityBeat, Pasadena Weekly, and New City Chicago, among other publications...

...Conference of Catholic Bishops, the nation's preeminent Roman Catholic leadership organization, issues statements every Presidential election cycle encouraging church members to vote against pro-choice candidates and issues...

...I think it's reasonable that we would expect the same of the Catholic Church...

...Bush's attempt to curry favor at such high levels backfired when Sodano neglected his request to lean on bishops for a direct statement that only Bush, not Kerry, abides by pro-Catholic values...

...I'm not a perfect Catholic, but I'm not out there promoting something that's contrary to Catholic teachings," said O'Neill...

...In the end, all the sound and fury will come down to a matter of conscience-that of each Catholic voter stepping into the election booth and wrangling over the issue...

...The idea is to show that many of the pro-choice Senators actually follow the bishops' wishes more than half the time, while the Senators who have the best anti-abortion records often score remarkably low across most or all of the other issues...

...Mahony instead announced that the churches under his rule would not be able to deny such politicians Communion, ruling that changes in their votes would only come through dialogue rather than public embarrassment via sacramental denial...

...Louis...

...The Bishops' Election Intervention By Carl Kozlowski Illustration by Michael Morgenstern John Kerry may become the first Catholic President since John F. Kennedy but the Church seems to be doing everything to stop him...

...But Bush is still playing hard for the Catholic vote...

...While Sheridan's spokesman for the Diocese of Colorado Springs refused to comment on any aspect of the bishop's controversy, the representative for Archbishop Burke was more forthcoming...

...It goes so far as to equate Catholic politicians who vote for abortion rights with physicians who perform abortions...

...In a poll commissioned by the organization that surveyed 2,239 Catholics, including 366 Latino Catholics, results showed that 70 percent of Catholics say the views of Catholic bishops are not important to them in deciding whom to vote for, and only 15 percent of frequent churchgoers said the bishops' views are "very" important...

...He also mailed the photos to Mahony asking him to order churches not to serve the prochoice politicians Communion...

...Louis radio station KMOX, Burke stated that Catholics sin by voting for candidates who favor abortion...

...In a June 24 interview with St...

...Three years ago, as the head of the citizen group Californians Against Planned Parenthood, he helped lead a successful campaign to keep a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic from being opened in his hometown of Monrovia...

...Bishop Michael Sheridan of the Colorado Springs Diocese said that voters even need to "recant" their votes before they could receive Communion...

...But according to Joseph Starrs of the 300,000-member pro-life organization American Life League, the church's stand on abortion and the current campaign are the very measure of its Earthly purpose...

...But O'Neill didn't stop there...

...Using this measure of voting records, John Kerry suddenly isn't tallied as a man who agreed with the bishops' pro-life views in only 11 percent of his abortion-related votes, but rather as a man who leads the Senate with a 60.1 percent record in favor of the bishops' issues overall...

...The separation of church and state that so many people take out of context is that the government shall not establish a religion-and there's no establishment here because he's certainly just encouraging people to get involved...

...At heart, it's not even a religious issue but a civil rights issue-the right to life...

...O'Neill's efforts, and Mahony's response, underscore the battle that's raging across America for the votes of Roman Catholics, America's largest religious denomination...

...But we do offer plenty of information to help Catholics understand the teaching of the church, especially on moral issues, and to help them pick their way...

...If they don't act this year, people will say you guys are just afraid of being political...