{"id":7734,"date":"2004-03-12T08:58:44","date_gmt":"2004-03-12T08:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/kerrys_catholicism_1.html"},"modified":"2004-03-12T08:58:44","modified_gmt":"2004-03-12T08:58:44","slug":"kerrys_catholicism_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/03\/kerrys_catholicism_1.html","title":{"rendered":"Kerry’s Catholicism"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Slate: How should he position himself?<\/a><\/p>\n

Will America’s Catholic bishops actually do anything about Kerry’s disregard of key church teachings? At minimum, they’ll complain, as will many conservative Catholic and pro-life groups. One of the biggest guns in their arsenal, spiritually speaking, is the refusal of communion. Most Catholics consider receiving the Eucharist to be at the heart of their faith and its most vivid expression. Pro-choice and pro-gay Catholics are still allowed to call themselves Catholic but, according to David Early, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, being recommended not to take Communion means that the church believes “there is something defective about that person’s practice of the Catholic faith.”<\/p>\n

St. Louis’ new Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke addressed Kerry’s liberal views shortly before the Missouri primary. “I would have to admonish him not to present himself for Communion,” Burke said on a local TV news show. Kerry’s hometown archbishop, Sean O’Malley of Boston, has in the past given Kerry Communion but recently said, “These politicians should know that if they’re not voting correctly on these life issues that they shouldn’t dare come to communion.” <\/p>\n

The more political and therefore bigger threat for Kerry is if a public spat with the bishops made him seem lacking in conviction or genuine faith. Will he come off as someone who calls himself Catholic but doesn’t act like one? Or will he just seem like many other American Catholics, defining his faith in a genuine and earnest way\u2014just not the way the church itself does?<\/p>\n

Politically speaking, what’s his best approach? He could agree not to take communion, a confession of the “defective” nature of his faith, but a sign also that he’s willing to play by the rules of the church and at the same time stick by his political scruples. But he would thereby insult, in effect, all other pro-choice Catholics who take communion on principle. He could attack the church’s position, thrill liberal Catholics, and look like a man of honor. But that could spook moderate Catholics. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

Senator Kerry on Ash Wednesday. Click for bigger view.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Slate: How should he position himself? Will America’s Catholic bishops actually do anything about Kerry’s disregard of key church teachings? At minimum, they’ll complain, as will many conservative Catholic and pro-life groups. One of the biggest guns in their arsenal, spiritually speaking, is the refusal of communion. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}