After Archbishop Raymond Burke threw down the gauntlet a few days back, more or less daring Rudy Giuliani to approach the communion rail, the GOP candidate has responded:

Republican Rudy Giuliani on Thursday brushed aside criticism from Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke who said he would deny Holy Communion to Giuliani and any other presidential candidate who supports abortion rights.

“I’m not running for religious office,” Giuliani told reporters during a brief appearance at a coffee bar in a St. Louis suburb.

“I’m not going to debate the opinion of an archbishop of the Catholic Church or an official of the Protestant Church or a rabbi,” Giuliani said. “That’s an interpretation of religion. They’re entitled to their interpretation of religion.”

On Wednesday, Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis, was asked if he would deny Communion to Giuliani or any other presidential candidate who favors abortion rights.

“If any politician approached me and he’d been admonished not to present himself, I’d not give it,” Burke told The Associated Press. “To me, you have to be certain a person realizes he is persisting in a serious public sin.”

Asked if the same would apply to politicians who support the death penalty or pre-emptive war, he said, “It’s a little more complicated in that case.”

Giuliani, a Catholic, would not be permitted to receive Communion under church law because he is remarried without having his second marriage annulled.</blockquote