Excommunicating Kerry

Trying to deny communion to any Catholic who publicly disagrees with Church doctrine would be too unwieldy. After all, if you denied communion to any Catholic who supports the abortion rights, death penalty, gay marriage, or the war in Iraq, well, pretty soon you'd run out of Catholics. Hell, there may not be too many left to give communion.

So, why not simplify things a wee bit?

Hudson said he believes the denial of Communion should begin, and end, with Kerry. Even better, he said, would be if priests would read letters from the pulpit denouncing the senator from Massachusetts "whenever and wherever he campaigns as a Catholic."

Josh Marshall looks at the Rovian strategy to enlist the Catholic Church as a Bush ally this fall.

These guys really are shameless.

But I think it's another self-defeating tactic on Rove's part. Catholics are not some unified, hegemonic mass, marching in lock-step to the Pope's piper. And this high profile argument -- between the bishops and cardinals themselves -- only serve to remind people that in this country the Church is not supposed to enter the political fray. Moreover, it serves to highlight Kerry's faith and it is a reminder that Bush's positions differ significantly from the Pope's -- as well as his own Methodism.

So bring it on. Kerry's no more likely to get conservative the Catholic vote than he is to get fundamentalist Christians to support him. But he will look a lot more sympathetic to less strident Catholics who would prefer the Church focus on the spiritual rather than the secular.