St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke is wading into the ’08 presidential campaign, and he’s already stirring the waters:

As the 2008 presidential campaign revs up, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke is reprising his role from 2004.

And the blogs are buzzing.

Four years ago, Burke drew international attention when he said that if Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry approached him for Holy Communion, Burke would deny Kerry the sacrament.

This time, there’s a Republican Catholic whose position on abortion rights contradicts church teaching. And Burke is pressing the issue again, saying that anyone — not just a bishop — administering Communion is morally obligated to deny it to wayward Catholic politicians.

Next month, Burke is expected to push the nation’s bishops to adopt his position in a document on political responsibility they will issue to Catholics before the election.

Of the six Catholics running for president, only Republican Sen. Sam Brownback has a legislative record on abortion that meets the church’s approval. Along with Republican Rudy Giuliani, Democrats Sen. Joseph Biden, Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Gov. Bill Richardson all have public records that are inconsistent with church teaching on abortion rights.

“It is a cause of concern for me and for all bishops to find ourselves in this situation,” Burke said in an interview last week.

Asked if he would deny Communion to Giuliani if the former New York mayor approached him for the sacrament at the Cathedral Basilica, Burke said: “If the question is about a Catholic who is publicly espousing positions contrary to the moral law and I know that person knows it, yes I would.”

In an interview earlier this year, Burke said of Giuliani: “I can’t imagine that as a Catholic he doesn’t know that his stance on the protection of human life is wrong. If someone is publicly sinning, they should not approach to receive Holy Communion.”

John Green, senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said Burke’s comment about Giuliani “could attract attention to where the candidate stands. … And in that way it could have a very powerful indirect effect” on Giluiani’s candidacy.

In an August poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 22 percent of the public — and 31 percent of Republicans — said they knew Giuliani supports abortion rights.

Ted Jelen, a political science professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said the archbishop’s comment about Giuliani is significant since Giuliani “has to run in the Republican primary, where religious issues are important.”

A Giuliani campaign spokesman, Elliott Bundy, said in an e-mail: “This is a decision that should be left up to the bishops and the priests of the Church.” Giuliani has refused to talk publicly about how he lives his Catholic faith, and Bundy would not answer questions about whether Giuliani regularly receives Communion, saying only, “Those issues are private.” Giuliani is expected to be in Clayton on Thursday for a breakfast fundraising event at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

None of the other Catholic presidential candidates’ campaigns responded to interview requests.

There’s more at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch link.

What has always gone unspoken in all this, however, is that Giuliani is evidently ineligible to receive communion in the first place, because of his marital situation (divorced, re-married outside the Church, without an annulment). It’s unfortunate that the archbishop doesn’t mention that.