Abortion Issue Pushes Kerry's Faith to Fore

WASHINGTON — Sen. John F. Kerry saw his Catholic faith pushed to the center of the nation's political stage Friday as he expressed unabashed support for abortion rights, even as a top Vatican official issued a statement saying priests must deny Communion to Catholic politicians who take that stance.

The statement from Cardinal Francis Arinze, who is frequently mentioned as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II, set off a tempest among church activists across the U.S., where Kerry stands on the verge of becoming the first Catholic presidential nominee in 44 years.

It underscored the fissure between Catholic politicians and the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of how closely office-holders should hew to church doctrine.

And if Friday's reaction to Arinze's comment was any indication, many Catholic politicians were not budging from their insistence that politics and religion should not mix.

"Abortion should be rare, but it should be safe and legal, and the government should stay out of the bedroom," Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said to chants and whoops of approval during an abortion-rights rally.

Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, made his remarks Friday as he accepted the endorsement of one of the nation's largest abortion-rights organizations, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

He told a crowd outside the City Museum that he would stake out a position on the issue much like that of former President Bill Clinton.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) and other Catholic lawmakers around the country said they had no intention of changing their views -- or their identity as Catholics -- now that a cardinal from Rome had suggested that their support for legalized abortion should preclude them from Communion.

"This is an opinion by one member in the Vatican circle

Still, the comments from Rome on Friday are likely to intensify scrutiny of Kerry and his Catholic beliefs.

The furor erupted when Arinze issued a document directing a clampdown on lay people giving sermons, non-Catholics taking Communion and the rites of other religions being introduced into church services.

In a news conference, Arinze was pressed about whether "unambiguously pro-abortion" Catholic politicians should receive Communion.