More on Kerry and the Catholic Church

Following up on our earlier discussion about the prospect of a politician who dissents from fundamental church teachings on public protection of human life becoming the most prominent Catholic in America, Time magazine has just published an article titled, A Test of Kerry's Faith, which can be found here.

Among various items of note in the article, here are two: First, with respect to concerns about scandal to the faithful that were mentioned earlier, the article quotes a leader in Vatican as saying: "People in Rome are becoming more and more aware that there's a problem with John Kerry, and a potential scandal with his apparent profession of his Catholic faith and some of his stances, particularly abortion."

Second, as was reported in our last discussion, the Archbishop of St. Louis had directed that John Kerry should not present himself for communion in that diocese. Interestingly, the article says that Kerry was expected to campaign in St. Louis last Sunday and that he declared he intends to take Mass while there. Although no reports of what occurred have been received, this raised the prospect of the most prominent Catholic in America being publicly denied communion or affirmatively disobeying the directive of a bishop in his own diocese.

Obviously this story will continue to be played-out over the long (very long) political season ahead.