Deal Hudson, publisher of Crisis magazine, a conservative publication, and an advisor to the Bush campaign on outreach to Catholic voters, said a Kerry presidency "would be worse for the church" than for the country.
"It would mean that the leading Catholic in the country, the most prominent Catholic, is someone who ignores the most important moral teaching of the church, the one teaching that is to be followed without exception," Hudson said.
"Abortion is the key vote for Catholics," he said. "It is the position that qualifies the candidate for our support."
In his speech to women's groups Friday, Kerry said that he viewed the abortion-rights fight as akin to other civil rights struggles in America.
"I believe the right of privacy is a Constitutional right," he said. "The right to privacy is not pro-abortion, it is pro-choice.... pro the rights of women. Protecting the right to privacy is protecting the full measure of rights of women in this country.
"We need a president who understands that women's rights are just that," Kerry said. "They are rights, and not political weapons to be used."
Kerry isn't the first Catholic politician to come under fire from the Catholic Church for supporting abortion rights.
Two Catholic Democrats, former vice presidential candidate Geraldine A. Ferraro and former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, were blasted in 1984 by the late Cardinal John J. O'Connor for their support of legalized abortion.
Ferraro, an observant Catholic who is personally opposed to abortion but supports abortion rights, was forced to publicly defend her views in the face of criticism from church leaders.
"I don't see how a Catholic in good conscience can vote for a candidate who explicitly supports abortion," said O'Connor, then the archbishop of New York, in a televised news conference in June 1984.
O'Connor accused Ferraro of misrepresenting the church's views on abortion when she signed a letter in support of Catholics for a Free Choice; the two eventually spoke on the phone but did not reconcile their different viewpoints.
The abortion issue flared up again in 1989, when a San Diego bishop denied state Assemblywoman Lucy Killea Communion because of her belief in abortion rights. The bishop's decision was the first incident of its kind.
On Friday, Ferraro angrily denounced the cardinal's comments about Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. She said she doubted that criticism of Kerry from the church would cause the candidate any political harm, contending that most Catholics support abortion rights.
