Roman Catholic politicians in New Jersey, including one who left the church yesterday, are expressing anger at what they say is an attempt by church leaders to force them to decide between their government oaths and their religion.
Elected officials said that escalating demands by the church hierarchy in New Jersey that Gov. McGreevey and others vote in accordance with Catholic doctrine on public issues runs counter to the principle of the separation of church and state.
State Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny said he told his pastor yesterday that he had decided to leave the church after 57 years.
If every faith starts trying to impose their rules on elected officials, democracy is going to be factionalized along religious lines," said Kenny, a Democrat from Hudson County.
Another Catholic Democrat, U.S. Rep. William Pascrell Jr. of Essex County, said he "was not sent to Congress to follow the dictates of the Catholic Church. I have to represent everybody in my district. That's what democracy is all about."
Pascrell and others said the church's position also threatened to resurrect the stigma against Catholics running for office that was erased by President John F. Kennedy's election nearly a half-century ago. During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy and Catholic leaders assured a skeptical public that the church would not influence his decisions as president.
"This is exactly what the Catholic Church said 50 years ago would not happen when Catholic politicians were trying to get elected to office," said Kenny, a former altar boy. "It is a total reversal of the position that enabled Catholics to represent people of all faiths and all backgrounds."
The church's increasingly aggressive stance sent shudders through the ranks of Catholic politicians in a state where the majority of elected officials support abortion rights, as do three-quarters of the voters.
The church ignited a political firestorm in the last few weeks when leading clerics, including the archbishop of Newark, declared that McGreevey and other elected officials should be denied Holy Communion because of their support for abortion rights, embryonic stem-cell research, and other programs that run counter to church doctrine.
As the pressure from top clerics grew, McGreevey said he would abide by the church's wishes and not attempt to receive Communion, though he reasserted his independence from the church in running the state.
"I'm a Catholic and I greatly value my faith and draw great strength from it, but I also have a constitutional obligation as governor," McGreevey said in an interview Friday.
The governor, who faces reelection next year, added: "I'm responsible to eight and a half million citizens who represent diverse faiths and backgrounds."
Unlike McGreevey, Pascrell said he would not submit to the church's directive with regard to the Eucharist. "I will continue receiving Communion - not in defiance but out of conscience. I have nothing to apologize for."
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a veteran Democrat from Union County, said that he would follow his church's wishes in New Jersey and that he would drive to New York City to receive Communion.
Lesniak, a former altar boy like many of his colleagues, is honorary chairman of this year's Pulaski Day Parade in New York and has been invited to a ceremonial audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican this summer. Yet, he said, he cannot receive Communion in his home state.
"The archbishop of Newark has made it clear that our presence is unwelcome at the altar," Lesniak said.
Kenny said that, at a meeting he arranged this weekend with his pastor, Msgr. Frank Del Prete, of SS. Peter and Paul Church in Hoboken, he asked whether he would be denied Communion because of his support for abortion rights and stem-cell research. Kenny said he was told he would be offered Communion one more time "but that then he would tell me not to come again."
"I will look for other options to express my faith and will probably join another Christian church," Kenny said.
"Under the church's position," he said, "the public could justifiably infer that the act of a public official taking Communion means they were following the directives of the church on policy issues."
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark declined to comment on Kenny's decision.
Lesniak said it was "unconscionable" for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers to condone violating the separation of church and state. The church, he said, "ought to be trying to bring people together, not separate them."
"The last thing we need is a religious war in our own country," said Assemblyman Louis Manzo, a Democrat from Hudson County. "By resurrecting this issue, the church is making it harder for Roman Catholics to overcome the barriers that John Kennedy knocked down almost 50 years ago."
The church's stance was also questioned by U.S. Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo, a Republican Catholic from Vineland.
LoBiondo said the church had every right to aggressively assert its positions on issues, but it should not obligate Catholic politicians to vote a certain way.
Democrats are especially worried because the church has singled out members of their party, including McGreevey and Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate.
Pascrell and others questioned why the church was targeting Democrats who support abortion rights while ignoring politicians who vote against church positions on issues such as unjust wars and the death penalty.
Some Catholic politicians said they did not want to be quoted for fear of antagonizing either voters or the church.
Analysts said the church's stance represents a political wild card in a highly urbanized, ethnic state such as New Jersey, where more than of half the voters are Catholic, as are a substantial portion of its local, state and federal officeholders.
New Jersey is one of the nation's most politically moderate states, with polls showing that three-quarters of voters favor abortion rights.
Surveys show that New Jersey Catholics support abortion rights by roughly the same overwhelming proportion, as do a great majority of Catholic officeholders in the state.
Some, however, said that passionate appeals from the pulpit could influence enough Catholics to affect the outcome of close elections.
The Democrats' most immediate concern is Kerry, who is running neck-and-neck with Bush in most public opinion polls. Several of this year's battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan, have sizable numbers of Catholic voters.
McGreevey has endured a rocky first term and is considered highly vulnerable in his bid for a second term next year. A concerted challenge by church officials could hurt him in a close race.
McGreevey's landslide election in 2001 was attributed largely to his decision early in the campaign to highlight his views on abortion.
During the campaign, McGreevey's frequent references to his days as an altar boy and his Catholic faith helped him win the Catholic vote by a wide margin, even capturing the support of Catholics from more conservative, blue-collar areas.
"In a close race you can't afford to lose even 5 percent of the Catholic vote in this state," said David Rebovich, director of Political Science at Rider University.
Rebovich said pressure from the church could cause McGreevey and other Catholic politicians to change their positions on issues such as abortion, risking a loss of credibility with voters.
McGreevey, for one, said there would be no change in his positions.
The governor said he was "strongly and unequivocally" in favor of a woman's right to choose an abortion, adding that there was no place for government interference in what he said was "an intensely personal decision between the woman and her doctor."
Many said the church's position could deter Catholics from getting involved in politics.
"If the price of running for public office is a public scolding by your bishop, then many may choose not to run," said Thomas O'Neil, a past executive director of the state Democratic Party.
LoBiondo and Pascrell said the church was creating an untenable standard both for Catholic politicians and religious officials.
They noted that some issues are so complex that a lawmaker could be both in compliance and in violation of church doctrine on the same piece of legislation.
"It's difficult because on many issues there's not a hard and fast line on where people stand," LoBiondo said, noting that lawmakers generally support certain aspects of an issue or legislation while opposing others.
"Will a bishop or priest understand someone's voting record completely, and how are they going to make that decision in the Communion line?" LoBiondo said.
A Democratic state legislator, who asked not to be named, agreed, saying, "What are we going to do, have priests standing at the Communion rail with legislative indexes in their hands?"