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Kerry is a former altar boy who complains when his campaign staff does not leave time in his Sunday schedule for Mass, who takes Communion and describes himself as a "believing and practicing Catholic, married to another believing and practicing Catholic." But just last week he made a rare appearance on the Senate floor to vote against a bill that would make harming a fetus a separate offense during the commission of a crime. The vote put Kerry on the same side as abortion-rights advocates in opposing specific legal rights for the unborn—and against nearly two-thirds of his fellow Senators.
For now, theologians say, Kerry's conduct is principally a matter between the candidate and his own Archbishop. Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley has given him Communion in the past; the Senator took the sacrament at O'Malley's installation last July. More recently, however, O'Malley has said that Catholic politicians who do not vote in line with church teachings "shouldn't dare come to Communion." But between the gay-marriage debate in Massachusetts and his efforts to repair the damage from the sexual-abuse scandal that began in his archdiocese, O'Malley already has a plateful of controversy. Kerry, for his part, is planning to avoid stirring any up. "I don't tell church officials what to do," he says, "and church officials shouldn't tell American politicians what to do in the context of our public life."