O'Malley won't offer blessing; Paulist priest to deliver invocation

In a break from past practice, the Democratic Party is not inviting the archbishop of Boston to offer a blessing at the Democratic National Convention, but instead is inviting a Paulist priest who has taken Senator John F. Kerry's side in a national debate over whether politicians who support abortion rights should receive Communion.

The Kerry campaign said last night it is seeking to have the Rev. John B. Ardis, director of the Paulist Center, deliver an invocation at the convention. The Paulist Center is on Beacon Hill, where Kerry lives, and the senator and his wife have often worshiped at the chapel there.

The Kerry campaign said it has not invited Sean P. O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston. O'Malley's spokesman, the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, said recently that O'Malley planned to be out of town this week.

''We never reached out to Archbishop O'Malley to deliver the invocation," said a Kerry spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter. ''We are seeking to arrange having [the priest] from the Paulist Center to deliver the invocation, since that is John Kerry's home church."

Ardis is a member of the Paulist Fathers, an order of Catholic priests dedicated to the evangelization of America. The Paulist Center, which he heads, is particularly popular among liberal Catholics, many of them disaffected from neighborhood parishes.

The role of Catholic archbishops at Democratic conventions has been controversial in the past.

At the 2000 convention in Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony gave the invocation, praying, ''In you, oh God, we trust that you will keep us ever committed to protect the life and well-being of all people, but especially unborn children." He was criticized by some abortion opponents for appearing before a party that supports abortion rights.

In 1996, Cardinal Joseph L. Benardin declined to speak at the Democratic convention in Chicago, and in 1992 and 1984 Cardinal John J. O'Connor declined to speak to Democratic conventions in New York.

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is never morally acceptable. The proposed Democratic Party platform this year declares that ''abortion should be safe, legal, and rare."

Kerry is poised this week to become the first Catholic major-party nominee since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Kerry has been a longtime supporter of abortion rights, although he said recently that he believes life begins at conception.

This year, a debate has raged within the church over whether Kerry and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be allowed to receive Communion. A few bishops, including Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis, have said they would deny Communion to Kerry based on his support for abortion rights. But other bishops, including O'Malley, have said that while Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should not seek Communion, the church would not deny it to those who do.

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

The Democratic National Convention Committee has declined requests to identify clergy speaking this week. Convention organizers have named only the Rev. James A. Forbes, Jr., senior minister of the Riverside Church, a New York City congregation affiliated with the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.

The Rev. Stephen T. Ayres, vicar of Old North Church, an Episcopal parish in Boston's North End, said he has been invited to give an invocation at this afternoon's session.

Glen Johnson of the Globe staff contributed to this report.