From Slate: How should he position himself?

Will America’s Catholic bishops actually do anything about Kerry’s disregard of key church teachings? At minimum, they’ll complain, as will many conservative Catholic and pro-life groups. One of the biggest guns in their arsenal, spiritually speaking, is the refusal of communion. Most Catholics consider receiving the Eucharist to be at the heart of their faith and its most vivid expression. Pro-choice and pro-gay Catholics are still allowed to call themselves Catholic but, according to David Early, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, being recommended not to take Communion means that the church believes “there is something defective about that person’s practice of the Catholic faith.”

St. Louis’ new Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke addressed Kerry’s liberal views shortly before the Missouri primary. “I would have to admonish him not to present himself for Communion,” Burke said on a local TV news show. Kerry’s hometown archbishop, Sean O’Malley of Boston, has in the past given Kerry Communion but recently said, “These politicians should know that if they’re not voting correctly on these life issues that they shouldn’t dare come to communion.”

The more political and therefore bigger threat for Kerry is if a public spat with the bishops made him seem lacking in conviction or genuine faith. Will he come off as someone who calls himself Catholic but doesn’t act like one? Or will he just seem like many other American Catholics, defining his faith in a genuine and earnest way—just not the way the church itself does?

Politically speaking, what’s his best approach? He could agree not to take communion, a confession of the “defective” nature of his faith, but a sign also that he’s willing to play by the rules of the church and at the same time stick by his political scruples. But he would thereby insult, in effect, all other pro-choice Catholics who take communion on principle. He could attack the church’s position, thrill liberal Catholics, and look like a man of honor. But that could spook moderate Catholics.

Senator Kerry on Ash Wednesday. Click for bigger view.