One of the sad realities over the last couple presidential election cycles was watching the Catholic Church and fellow Catholics be manipulated by the Republican Party.
In the past, Catholics traditionally voted in a higher percentage for Democratic candidates. There are a variety of reasons for this. For one, the Catholic Church of my childhood was a Church that believed in social justice. The Church is also emphatically opposed to capital punishment. And, of course, the only Catholic ever elected to office was John F. Kennedy.
Over time, things began to change as the Republican Party started to court the Catholic vote and as the Religious Right, most notably Pat Robertson, started attempting to start a dialogue with Catholics, a dialogue focused almost entirely on a single issue-abortion.
And so, it was not too surprising that John Kerry had a Catholic problem in 2004. According to a Pew Poll, Non-Latino Catholics gave a majority of their votes for Bush over Kerry, himself a Catholic.
Pew Poll
Karl Rove couldn't have planned it any better. And to help sew the seeds of doubt and prevent Kerry from leveraging his faith for a greater share of the Catholic vote, conservative operatives waged an all out war against Kerry's faith. Remember the heresy charges filed against Kerry in an attempt to get him excommunicated?
Hannity and Colmes Transcript
This story was all over the place. And it was taken as fact that Kerry was excommunicated though that was never the case.
Vatican Denies Kerry Excommunicated
Now the topic of the excommunication and pro choice politicians is again in the news in the wake of the Pope's comments earlier this week about Mexican politicians who had supported legalization of abortion. All this while the top Republican candidate, a Catholic, has decided after waffling on this issue for almost 20 years, that he is firmly pro-choice.
Well, its time to listen to the advice of James Carville (just this once) and throw Rudy an anchor that will sink his presidential ambitions and split a wedge right down the center of the Republican Party. Reporters need to start asking Guiliani the tough questions--does his own stance on abortion justify excommunication? What is his opinion of the Pope's recent comments about pro-choice politicians? Similarly, reporters should be asking those with a background in Canon law and church leaders whether Guiliani's position is inconsistent with the Church's view of abortion and whether it justifies excommunication.
Beyond that, a petition similar to the one drummed up against Kerry should be submitted to Cardinal Eagan asking that Guiliani's heresy be investigated as a grounds for excommunication.
No doubt some may think this is the wrong thing to do. But as a Catholic, I think that this debate could have far-reaching implications beyond mere politics. If it forces the Church into a position where they have to say that a politician's stance on abortion is not itself justification for excommunication and that Catholics should not vote based solely on this one issue, this could unravel much of the work done by evangelicals to demonize pro-choice politicians. The more the abortion issue is in the public eye in 2008, the better for the Democratic nominee particularly when the discussion turns to judicial appointments.