LeftOut
by Daryl Moore

PRICE OF PIETY

Some religious leaders promote politics over theology

Many bishops and priests in the Catholic Church have begun denying communion to Catholic politicians who support any type of abortion-rights legislation. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, has recently been told by more than one bishop not to bother coming to the communion table. If Kerry attempts to take communion, those bishops say they will withhold communion from Kerry because of his support for abortion rights.

Now the Catholic bishop of a Colorado diocese has gone a step farther. He has told the priests in his diocese that it is appropriate to withhold communion from any parishioner who supports any candidate who favors abortion rights or gay rights.

The idea that Catholic politicians should ultimately be accountable to their bishops, or the Vatican, first popped up during the 1960 presidential campaign of John Kennedy, the first and only Catholic ever elected president. When Protestants voiced their concerns that, if elected, Kennedy would answer to the pope, Kennedy made it clear he would not. The Catholic Church did not respond by threatening Kennedy. And it certainly did not threaten Catholics who planned to vote for him.

Almost 50 years later, Kerry is saying essentially the same thing that Kennedy said. Kerry has stated that his decisions as president would “be guided by his obligation to all the people of our country and to the constitution of the United States.” Not the Catholic Church, and not the Vatican.

So why are so many Catholic leaders threatening Kerry, and politicians like him, who might personally oppose abortion but defer to the electorate and the Supreme Court’s 30-year-old decision that Americans have a constitutional right to choose to have an abortion?

It would be nice to believe that those Catholics who are threatening to withhold communion from politicians and Catholic voters do so out of piety, not politics. But, if that were so, those same Catholic leaders would threaten to withhold communion from any politician or parishioner who supports the death penalty, the right to divorce, contraception on demand, stem-cell research, or even the war in Iraq (which the Vatican opposed). They’re not.

What is clear from the Catholic leaders’ decision to threaten only those who support abortion rights and gay rights is that those leaders are injecting themselves into the political process for political reasons, not religious ones.

And that’s okay. If churches—Catholic or otherwise—want to engage in political lobbying on controversial issues like abortion and gay rights, or become the “religious” arm of a political party, they should be able to do so. But their political efforts should not be tax-exempt.

Lobbying organizations have to pay for the privilege to affect outcomes in elections. They are not tax-exempt. If religious leaders want to turn pulpits into political podiums, they should have to forfeit their tax-exempt status. Otherwise, why not form the First Church of the Human Rights Campaign?

Writing from the liberal side, Houston attorney Daryl Moore has a general practice and is board certified in civil appellate law.

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