I got the impression that Patrick Kennedy wanted to put his clash with Bishop Tobin behind him and move on, but some commentators just won’t let it rest.

The latest to add his two cents is Timothy Egan from the New York Times:

In a terse exchange of letters, the bishop said it was “inappropriate” for Kennedy to receive communion. Kennedy responded: “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy of the church on some issue does not make me any less Catholic.”

He said later he would have no further comment; that it was “an issue of faith,” between himself and God.

The Jesuits were also big on logical thinking, encouraging generations of mushy-headed knuckleheads like myself to bring a rigorous intellectual test to matters of the public domain. With this recent claim of his, Bishop Tobin would have trouble blustering his way past the priests who taught my freshman civics class.

There are 65 million Catholics in the United States — 22 percent of the population. And a slim majority of them, 51 percent, believe abortion should be legal in most circumstances, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. A full 60 percent support the death penalty, which the church has long opposed.

Those numbers mean that more than half of all American Catholics are in a position somewhat similar to Patrick Kennedy’s. To be consistent, the bishop should start checking them off at the altar rail as they line up to receive communion — sinner, saint, sinner, saint, and so on.

It’s absurd, dangerous and impossible for any cleric to think he can know the precise state of grace of a fellow Catholic who feels moved to worship publicly. But that is the logical conclusion of the bishop’s campaign.

American Catholic bishops wrestled with this question five years ago, regarding the faith of Senator John Kerry, a pro-choice practicing Catholic and the Democratic nominee for president.

They smartly refused to issue a blanket order; most bishops wanted no part in such a political inquisition.

Bishop Tobin says he acted only because Kennedy has been so public in his support of a woman’s right to choose. Of late, Kennedy has also been needling the bishops on their lukewarm support for helping fellow Americans get health care, via the largest undertaking in Congress in a generation’s time to elevate the sick and less prosperous. Abortion, as before, is the sticking point.

Again, for consistency’s sake, I take it the bishop will now turn his fire on Rudolf Giuliani, the thrice-married, pro-choice and pro-death-penalty Catholic. No secret about his positions. Or maybe he’ll have a word for Newt Gingrich, a recent Catholic convert now on his third marriage, who supports the death penalty, and rarely has a political thought that he does not share with the public.

There are so many problems with Egan’s arguments, it’s hard to know where to begin. You can read the whole thing here.

Among other things, he makes the mistake (as so many casual Catholics do) of equating abortion with the death penalty; on Gingrich and Giuliani, he displays his ignorance of canon law on the subject of marriage and annulment; and he fails to point out that it was Kennedy who started this feud in the first place by publicizing a two-year-old private communication from his bishop.