Kerry meets with cardinalTalk follows criticismof stance on abortionWASHINGTON -- John F. Kerry, facing criticism from some Roman Catholics for his views on abortion and other social issues, met yesterday with the head of a task force examining possible sanctions for politicians who stray from the church's teachings.
The meeting with Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, which the Democratic presidential contender's campaign staff would describe only as "personal and private," came at Kerry's request and was scheduled this week, according to a spokeswoman for the Washington archbishop. On Sunday, Kerry took Communion at an Easter Mass in Boston despite a warning from the city's archbishop, Sean P. O'Malley, that political figures should not seek the sacrament if they support abortion rights, as does the senator. Republicans open new front in campaign against Kerry, A17; President Bush, in Iowa, touts success on economy, A18 McCarrick spokeswoman Susan Gibbs said the 45-minute session at the pastoral center in Hyattsville, Md., was a private pastoral meeting. While she would not discuss the subject matter, she reiterated McCarrick's belief that "we are to be clear in our teaching, and the faithful are called to understand and live the teaching." At the same time, she added: "Cardinal McCarrick would be reluctant to use the Eucharist as a sanction." O'Malley has warned politicians against seeking it, but has said he would not deny it to them. McCarrick, who is particularly interested in politics because his archdiocese includes the nation's capital, is chairing a task force set up by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to examine the relationship between Catholic bishops and Catholic politicians in light of a doctrinal note issued last year by Pope John Paul II. The Vatican document instructed Catholic politicians that "a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals." The Vatican also reiterated the pope's position that Catholic lawmakers must oppose abortion, euthanasia, and legal recognition for same-sex marriages. Kerry supports abortion rights; he opposes gay marriage, but favors civil unions for gays and lesbians. The McCarrick task force is drafting guidelines for bishops; those guidelines are not aimed at the 2004 election, and it is not clear that they will be completed this year. At a meeting of the bishops' conference last fall, bishops discussed various ways to express disapproval of Catholic politicians who vote against key church teachings, such as withholding honorary degrees from Catholic colleges or other honors. Before traveling to Washington, Kerry held a fund-raising breakfast during which he both announced a new advertising campaign and vowed to run a firm campaign against President Bush. "I am going to put real choices in front of the country. This isn't going to be any mealy-mouthed, half-assed, you know, namby-pamby campaign," the senator said at the 21 Club to a group of 100 people who donated $25,000 apiece to the Democratic National Committee. All told, Kerry and the party raised $8.9 million over two days. He also lambasted the Bush administration in response to a woman who asked how he would appeal to a married woman with children who is fearful of terrorism. "Home base for George Bush in this race, as you saw to the nth degree in his press conference, is terror. Ask him a question and he's going to go to terror. And everything he did in Iraq, he's going to try to persuade people it has to do with terror, even though everybody here knows that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaeda and everything to do with an agenda that they had preset, determined," Kerry said. "I say again and again as I campaign, I can wage a more effective war on terror than this administration." Later, during an appearance at Howard University in Washington, the senator also disputed comparisons between the Iraqi war and Vietnam -- tentatively. "It's not Vietnam yet, and I underscore 'yet,' " he told a student. "But I think this administration is making mistakes of judgment and stubbornness that increasingly push it toward the potential of developing into a much more difficult situation than it has to be." The comments prompted a retort from Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. "Today's reckless allegation by Senator Kerry that the president is overemphasizing the threat of terror demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the global war on terror and the threat facing America and the world," Racicot said. "On a day when Osama bin Laden again threatened the United States and our allies, it is disturbing to realize that John Kerry neither recognizes nor understands the murderous ideology of our enemies and the threat that they pose to our nation." In announcing his new ad campaign, Kerry told the New York fund-raising crowd: "A lot of people still don't really know who I am." While not divulging specifics, he recalled a conversation a day earlier with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in which the former first lady recalled how little voters knew about her and her husband, Bill Clinton, after he secured his first Democratic nomination in June 1992. "The level of communication that we still need to undertake here is enormous," Kerry said. His announcement came a day after the Bush-Cheney campaign announced it is scaling back its advertising because, it believes, voters had begun to get distracted from the presidential race. Today, the Bush-Cheney campaign will end an ad that touts Bush's economic policies, as well as two commercials portraying his rival as a tax-raiser. The campaign will continue to air a spot accusing Kerry of waffling on military issues. The campaign has spent at least $50 million on television and radio ads in 18 states, the Associated Press reported.
Paulson reported from Boston. Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. |
