Church in the World

Democrats? Convention opts for blessing of a friendly priest

Americas

The Democratic Party has broken with tradition and declined to invite the Archbishop of Boston to offer a blessing at its National Convention, which opened in the city this week.

The party has instead invited a Paulist priest in the city who has defended the party?s presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, against church leaders who say his pro-abortion stance should disqualify him from receiving Communion.

The Kerry campaign said on Sunday it had asked Fr John B. Ardis, director of the Paulist Centre where Kerry regularly attends Mass and receives Communion, to deliver an invocation at the convention. The Paulist Centre, which is near Kerry?s house and was described by a spokeswoman as his ?home church?, is popular among progressive Catholics disaffected from neighbourhood parishes.

It is usual practice for the Democrats to ask the bishop or archbishop of the city hosting the party?s convention to bless the proceedings. But this time, a Kerry spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, told the Boston Globe, ?We never reached out to Archbishop O?Malley to deliver the invocation.?

The Archbishop of Boston?s spokesman, Fr Christopher J. Coyne, said recently that Archbishop O?Malley planned to be out of town during this week. Although the decision not to invite him has been reported as a calculated snub, it may also be a way of avoiding embarrassment for both the senator and the archbishop.

Catholic bishops have been divided this year over the issue of whether to deny the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who vote for abortion. Kerry, a Catholic whose consistent pro-abortion voting record includes a vote against a ban on partial-birth abortion last year, has been one of the worst offenders.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops warned recently that politicians who support abortion rights may be ?guilty of cooperating in evil and in sinning against the common good? and said ?the Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honour those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles?. But the bishops? conference left it to individual bishops to decide whether to deny Communion to politicians supporting abortion rights.

A few, including Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St Louis, have said they would refuse Kerry Communion if he presented himself at the altar rail. But others, including Archbishop O?Malley, have argued that while Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should not seek Communion, the Church would not refuse it to those who do. This is also the position of the Archishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.