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Mark Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator. |
Mark Shields: Catholic contradictions and politics
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- To his mostly conservative admirers, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, is admired for being candid in speech and rock solid on social issues. To his critics, mostly non-conservatives, Santorum is judged abrasive and too quick to demonize political adversaries.
That the gruesome surgical procedure opponents called "partial birth abortion" is now illegal is testimony to the legislative tenacity of Santorum, who in debate called it "the calculated killing of the nearly born."
Yet today in the diocese of Colorado Springs, Santorum, a practicing Roman Catholic, is effectively barred from receiving communion. There, Bishop Michael Sheridan has told his flock that Catholic politicians who back abortion rights, gay marriage, stem-cell research and euthanasia "may not receive holy communion" and also that the identical sacramental prohibition applies to "any Catholic who would vote for that political candidate."
In this year's Pennsylvania primary, Rick Santorum's and President Bush's all-out and enthusiastic endorsements of Santorum's home-state GOP colleague, Sen. Arlen Specter, an unequivocal backer of abortion rights, may have made the difference in Specter's razor-thin victory over Rep. Pat Toomey, an unequivocal opponent of legalized abortion.
Is this fair? By Sheridan's formula, can Catholic voters in his Colorado Springs diocese even vote in November for George W. Bush, a Methodist, who supported the pro-stem-cell research Sen. Arlen Specter?
Bishops in St. Louis; Newark, New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; and Lincoln, Nebraska, among other places, have made it clear that U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, a Catholic supporter of legalized abortion and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, would not be welcome at the communion rails of their dioceses' Sunday masses. These bishops apparently consider themselves "more Catholic than the Pope."
That's right, "more Catholic than Pope John Paul II." The Holy Father in a private mass at the Vatican last year personally gave communion to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is not only not a Catholic (he's Anglican) but who is also pro-choice.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles may have had that Vatican event or a larger Catholic political and social agenda in mind when he recently commented to the National Catholic Reporter that John Kerry would be welcome to receive communion in at his masses, adding: "I'm puzzled by people rattling sanctions at the moment. That has not been our tradition over the years."
To Catholic voters, the self-controlled Kerry does not come across as an easily identifiable co-religionist.
In fact, watching Kerry reminds this Catholic of the legendary American Jewish journalist-wise man Harry Golden's unforgettable line about the 1964 Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater, who had, in spite of his father's name, been brought up in his mother's Protestant faith: "I always knew the first Jewish president would be an Episcopalian."
Kerry spoke about his admiration for Pope "Pius XXIII." No doubt he confused Pope Pius XII with the beloved Pope John XXIII, which is a little bit like an alleged student of British history maintaining that his favorite monarch was "King Henry XVIII."
Yes, the Catholic Church I know does fight hard to defend life in the womb. But for believing Catholics, life -- and the community's responsibility to life -- does not begin at conception and end at birth. Unlike so many on the Religious Right (who strike me as a lot more right than religious), the Catholic Church fights just as hard in behalf of women and children in poverty.
When was the last time anyone heard Kerry use two minutes of his precious television time to advocate an increase in the minimum wage? Does anyone doubt that George W. Bush's answer to the painful plight of the family barely surviving on a non-"living wage" would include permanent repeal of the capital gains tax?
Undocumented immigrants, unemployed workers, refugees and the homeless don't get invited to private presidential dinners or to sit in party convention skyboxes. They have no money. Most of them cannot or do not vote. But their cause and their crises -- in every state capitol and in the halls of Congress -- are represented not by supply-side Republicans or New Way Democrats, but by the Catholic Church, which is this nation's largest non-governmental provider of education, heath care and human services.
John Kerry should take some pride in that. Over the next five months, Americans of all faiths and of none will find out how many American bishops have forgotten the Catholic Church's proud and generous heritage.
