Living on a Prayer
Pro-abortion candidates like Kerry face long-term trouble from Catholics.
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Senator John Kerry has gotten religion in the waning days of the campaign, but for Catholic voters, his conversion may have come too late.
The favored candidate of liberal secularists and abortion-rights activists has recently taken to reminiscing about his days as an altar boy, gushing about his "deep respect" for Catholic moral teachings even as he defies them, and reminding his audiences that he does, indeed, go to Mass.
"I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy," Kerry said during the presidential debate in St. Louis, while trying to dodge a question about whether he would use taxpayer money to fund abortions. (He has publicly promised that he would.)
"I am a Catholic...I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy," he intoned again in Tempe, while promising that he would only appoint pro-abortion judges to the Supreme Court. "...My faith affects everything that I do, in truth."
Perhaps Kerry felt compelled to add that caveat because so many Catholics watching at home might have concluded otherwise, since their church has always considered abortion a grave evil that must never be protected by law or supported by public authorities.
Kerry has calculated that despite his flagrant disregard for Catholic teaching on such fundamental moral issues as the sanctity of life and the protection of marriage, he can still persuade the bulk of Catholic voters to support him. His tactic: Repeat his religious affiliation ad nauseum and assure Catholics that he personally opposes that which his policies protect.
That ploy has worked for candidates like Kerry in the past. But a combination of factors — from the increasing boldness of America's pro-life bishops to the proliferation of pro-life Catholic voter's guides and the success of pro-life parish-based registration drives — have left Kerry surprisingly vulnerable among Catholics.
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