Top cardinal at Vatican implies John Kerry is unfit for Communion

Kerry's campaign responds that religion isn't an issue in politics.
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A top Vatican cardinal said priests must deny communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, but stopped short of saying whether it was right for John Kerry to receive Communion.
Cardinal Francis Arinze spoke at a news conference today to launch a new Vatican directive clamping down on liturgical abuses in Mass which bars lay people from giving sermons, non-Catholics from taking Communion and rites of other religions from being introduced in the service.
Kerry's campaign said that religion should not be an issue in U.S. politics.
'Nonissue'
Kerry spokesman David Wade would not respond directly to Cardinal Arinze, but he reiterated Kerry's position on the separation of church and state that "helped make religious affiliation a nonissue in American politics."
"The decisions he will make as president will be guided by his obligation to all the people of our country and to the Constitution of the United States," Wade said in the statement. "Every American -- whether they be Jewish, Catholic, Protestant or any other faith -- must believe their president is representing them."
The document restated church teaching that anyone who knows he is in "grave sin" must go to confession before taking Communion.
The cardinal was asked whether that meant that Kerry should not request or be given Communion for his unapologetic support of human rights, including a woman's right to abortion.
The Democratic presidential candidate says he personally opposes abortion, but supports the rights of others to have one. He argues that church doctrine allows Catholics the freedom of conscience to choose.
Cardinal Arinze, a Nigerian whose Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the document, said the church's position was clear and that U.S. bishops should decide in Kerry's particular case.
"The norm of the church is clear," he said. "The Catholic Church exists in the United States and there are bishops there. Let them interpret it."
When pressed to speak generally about the case of "unambigiously pro-abortion" Catholic politicians, the cardinal concurred that such a politician "is not fit" to receive Communion.
"If they should not receive, then they should not be given," he said.
Bishop Raymond Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis, has said he would refuse to give Kerry communion; Kerry's own archbishop, Sean O'Malley of Boston, has endorsed that principle without naming the senator.
The Vatican directive, commissioned by Pope John Paul II, softened a stricter earlier draft that had discouraged the use of altar girls and denounced such practices as applauding and dancing during Mass.
It said, however, that "shadows are not lacking" and that the Vatican cannot remain silent about abuses that "not infrequently plague liturgical celebrations."
The 71-page document, called an instruction, keyed on what the Vatican considers such abuses as lay people increasingly taking on the role of priests, even non-Christians "out of ignorance" coming forward to take Communion and the introduction into the Mass of books and rites of other religions.
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