Beating the Bush

IT IS WIDELY CONSIDERED that next month's presidential election in the United States will be one of the tightest electoral battles in history. Forget the talk of Florida fixes, in such a close-fought contest, winning over 'swinging' voters is a key component of victory. Numbered at around 65 million, Catholics make up a quarter of the American electorate and represent the largest single 'swing vote' in the country, especially in key Midwestern states like Ohio, where the election is considered up for grabs by both Democrats and Republicans.

Religion: a political weapon

Both presidential candidates are staunch Christians, and their very Christianity could be seen as a political weapon in a nation where most voters consider themselves religious, and want to vote for a candidate of faith. But whereas Republican George W. Bush openly talks about being a born-again Christian, Democratic candidate John Kerry has in the past seemed reticent to discuss his Catholicism. Bush, one of the most overtly religious presidents of modern time, has made faith a central theme of his re-election campaign, speaking often in spiritual terms drawn from the New Testament. Kerry, however, during the early part of his election campaign, preferred to keep his religion a personal affair, rather than use it as what his spokesman called a political prop. Consequently, many in the US do not affiliate Kerry with religion. Indeed, a Time magazine poll earlier this year found that only seven percent of voters described him as a man of strong religious faith. Other polls conducted suggest churchgoers will flock to vote for Bush next month, as many did in 2000.

Republicans court Vatican

The role of religion in the presidential election was highlighted by reports that Bush tried to enlist Vatican support during his visit to Rome in June. Bush has vigorously pursued the Vatican's agenda on pro-life issues, and is aggressively seeking to increase the Republican share of the Catholic vote. He was reported to have appealed to the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, for political support, promising in return strong action by his administration against gay marriage. Asking for the Vatican's help in encouraging American bishops to be more outspoken on these issues, Bush is reported to have said, Not all the American bishops are with me.
The American bishops meanwhile continue to be divided over how to respond to Kerry, the first Catholic nominee for president since John F. Kennedy, and only the third in American history. Like Kennedy in 1960, Kerry is running as a senator from Massachusetts, a traditionally liberal state which earlier this year become the first to legalise homosexual marriage. Before he was elected, Kennedy acknowledged public scepticism towards having a Catholic in the White House, and said, I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute... Where no Catholic prelate would tell the president, should he be Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote, he said.
While Kennedy found himself vowing that he would not be controlled by the Pope, John Kerry, the man nicknamed JFK II, has had to explain his differences with the Church on abortion and gay issues. Some of his staunchest critics within the Church, as senior bishops, are openly questioning whether his Catholic credentials are strong enough to warrant their support, or even to receive Holy Communion.

At odds with Church?

After a 30-year political career, this is the first time that his Catholicism has caused him such a headache. In his autobiography, A Call to Service, Kerry describes himself as a believing and practising Catholic. Aides describe him as a religious man, a former altar boy who was raised by a devoutly Catholic mother, and is married to an equally devout Catholic woman, Teresa Heinz Kerry, with whom he regularly attends Mass. During his service in the Vietnam War, for which he received three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star, he wore a rosary around his neck when going into battle. On the campaign trail, he is said to carry a rosary, a prayer-book, and a medal with the image of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travellers.
When his first marriage broke up, he dutifully sought an annulment from Rome. The Democrats have played up their candidate's Catholic credentials, releasing an analysis of Kerry's voting record in the Senate on all issues where the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has taken a stand. The analysis shows that he has followed the bishops' views on a wide range of issues, including war, social justice and capital punishment. But on what may have become the 'litmus test' issues - abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriage - the Massachusetts senator's views are out of kilter with the Church. And this divergence has helped to bring religion to the fore as a political weapon in the election campaign.
There are many things that are of concern and taught by the Church with respect to war, with respect to the environment, with respect to poor people and our responsibilities to each other: I am very comfortable with where I am with respect to those, Kerry told reporters in June. But I am not a spokesperson for the Church, and the Church is not a spokesperson for the United States of America.
Kerry opposed calls, backed by the Church, for a constitutional amendment to protect the status of marriage between a man and a woman. He also voted against the Defence of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 - an early attempt to head off the prospect of same-sex unions. Most tellingly of all, he vigorously supports choice on abortion. Though he has said he believes life begins at conception, he is a trenchant critic of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act (which limits late-term abortions) signed in 2003 by Bush. Kerry called this bill a dangerous effort to undermine a woman's right to choose, which is a constitutional amendment I will always fight to protect. He was prominent among the minority of American senators who voted against a law prohibiting 'partial birth' abortion, and was unusually emphatic in identifying himself with the National Abortion Rights League (NARAL), a leading pro-abortion lobby.
In Boston, Kerry's home-town, Archbishop Séan O'Malley has said candidates for election with pro-abortion views should not receive Communion. But Kerry has continued to attend church, receiving Communion each Sunday carefully surveyed by the press corps in a ritual that has become known as Wafer-Watch.
The column inches generated by Kerry's Mass-going habits, and the tension created by his religious beliefs, reflects the finely balanced nature of the electorate. During Lent, Kerry had found himself on the campaign trail in Missouri, and was told in no uncertain terms by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis not to present himself for Communion unless he dropped his support of existing abortion laws. Rather than risk a confrontation at the altar-rail, Kerry went instead to a Baptist church.

Church divided

This sparked a national debate, and the issue of whether Kerry should be banned from receiving Communion divided America's bishops. A handful of them, including Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado, backed Burke, and said they would refuse Kerry Communion if he presented himself at the communion rail. But the majority, including Cardinals Theodore McCarrick of Washington DC, and Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, said they were uncomfortable with such Eucharistic sanctions. They were concerned that such drastic measures exposed the Church to charges of political interference.
Cardinal McCarrick, who heads a committee of bishops set up to look into the receiving of Communion by pro-abortion politicians, discussed the issue at a USCCB meeting in Denver in June. He voiced concerns that the sacred nature of the Eucharist might be turned into a partisan political battle-ground. Those battles, he said, should be fought not at the communion rail, but in the public square, in hearts and minds, in our pulpits and public advocacy, in our consciences and communities.
Having consulted with the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the bishops agreed to a compromise, and adopted Catholics in Political Life by a massive majority of 183-6. This made clear that the decision to refuse Communion to politicians who consistently defy Catholic teaching in their voting records rested with the individual bishop in accord with established canonical and pastoral principles. Tellingly, it blamed the bitter election campaign for this irresolution, since the polarising tendencies of election-year politics can lead to circumstances in which Catholic teaching and sacramental practice can be misused for political ends.
The USCCB stance showed their determination not to allow the question of Communion bars on politicians to become an issue in next month's presidential elections. But some of the conservative bishops were not content to let the issue lie. Burke, well-known in Rome, and seen as one of the rising stars of the US Church, wrote a pastoral letter telling Catholic voters that to support a dissenting politician amounts to committing a mortal sin. Catholics who support such pro-abortion candidates participate in a grave evil, he said. They must show a change of heart, and be sacramentally reconciled or refrain from receiving Holy Communion. Burke's remarks go further than Ratzinger's memorandum, which states that when a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favour of abortion, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, this can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.
Missouri, where Burke's diocese is based, is a swing state, and both parties responded vigorously to the archbishop's hardening position. The state's Republican chairwoman, Ann Wagner, said, As a Catholic, I have great respect for the way he is attempting to lead his Catholic flock; I admire his conviction and his clarity. William Lacy Clay Jr., St Louis Congressman and also a Catholic, objected that Burke has crossed the line, adding, That's unfortunate for him, as well as for the Church. It is not certain how Catholic voters will respond to Burke's outspoken position. One thing that is certain about next month's presidential elections, though, is that there will be plenty more accusations of key figures crossing the line between religion and politics.