John Kerry would be only the second American president of the Roman Catholic faith. The first, of course, was John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy's election was a moment of great celebration among American Catholics and among the Church hierarchy -- Boston's Cardinal Richard Cushing was particularly close to the Kennedy family -- even though Kennedy had made it clear on the campaign trail, rebutting an anti-Catholic hate campaign, that he would not be taking policy instructions from the Vatican. In 1960, this was a major issue, and many of Kennedy's opponents contended that he'd be a tool of the pope.
Today, however, the Catholic Church hierarchy is coolly distant to Kerry, who is, if anything, a more strictly observant Catholic than Kennedy was. Today's Church leaders are actually demanding what Kennedy insisted was a slander -- that an American president should take policy direction from the Vatican.
But Kerry has also made clear, rather more politely than Kennedy did, that he will not be an arm of official Church teaching on one contentious issue: abortion. Kerry says that he believes, with Church doctrine, that human life begins at conception. But he will not impose the Church's doctrine on non-Catholics (or, for that matter, on the majority of Catholics who tell pollsters that they oppose the Church's view of birth control). Kerry supports a woman's right to choose.
For that, Kerry has been shunned by much of the Church leadership, and there have been calls to deny him communion. Tonight, at the Fleet Center, the benediction will be given, at Kerry's invitation, by the Reverend Jon B. Ardis, Kerry's own pastor. Kerry did not invite Boston's new archbishop, Sean P. O'Malley, who almost surely would have declined. According to a close friend of Kerry's, when O'Malley was informed as a courtesy that Ardis would be giving the benediction, he snapped, "That doesn't matter. I'll be out of town on vacation."
Who is the Reverend Ardis? He directs the Paulist Center of Boston. The Paulists, especially the Boston Center, have long been an oasis of social progressivism in the Church. Gays, lesbians, and divorced people are welcome at the Paulist Center. Catholic critics of current Church doctrine, like my dear friend James Carroll, have a long association with the Boston Paulist Center. The Paulists have prodded the hierarchy for reform on the sex-abuse scandal, and are a welcome thorn -- you might say a whole crown of thorns -- in the side of Church conservatives.
Nobody has directed Ardis to deny Kerry his blessings. But as the 2004 campaign heats up, watch for the Catholic hierarchy and the anti-abortion lobby to try to tighten the screws on Kerry and his beliefs.
At bottom, this all reflects the reactionary policies of the current pope. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who gave the invocation at the Democrats' Los Angeles convention four years ago, is the last surviving American cardinal not appointed by Pope John Paul II. The current crop of cardinals includes some who are liberal on economic issues, but all are conservative on Church family doctrine.
The Church is denying itself a celebration of one of its own sons and of America's increased religious tolerance since the anti-Catholicism of 1960. Instead, it is behaving as a source of intolerance. This plays into the hands of reactionaries who disagree with Church teachings on a broad range of other social issues where the Church is a progressive force. Indeed, some of the Church's fundamentalist allies on the abortion issue, from other sects, deny that Catholics are even Christians.
John Kerry is navigating these treacherous shoals with far more grace than his critics. He is modeling what Thomas Jefferson intended: a marriage of faith and tolerance.
Blessings all around.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect.
