THE US: Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry has moved closer to an open confrontation with the Catholic hierarchy by taking communion, despite calls that he refrain from the sacrament.
Some prominent members of the US hierarchy have stated publicly their belief that the senator is ineligible to receive communion because of his support for abortion. Despite these claims, Mr Kerry and his wife Teresa attended Mass in a church near their Beacon Hill home in Boston on Easter Sunday. Both took communion.
Leading church criticism of Mr Kerry has been Archbishop Raymond Burke of St Louis. The archbishop advised the senator from Massachusetts not to "present himself for communion" at any church in the city.
The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, said he could envisage sanctions against Catholic politicians who supported issues contrary to Catholic teaching. He was reluctant to support the denial of the eucharist as one of those sanctions, however.
Archbishop Seán Patrick O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston has refused to be drawn specifically as to whether Mr Kerry should receive communion. He said, however, that Catholic elected officials who support abortion should abstain from communion voluntarily.
Despite describing himself as "a believing, practising Catholic" in his 2003 book A Call to Service, Mr Kerry veers from Catholic teaching in certain key areas.
In recent votes in the US senate, Mr Kerry has opposed bills to ban partial-birth abortion and has supported a resolution affirming that the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court ruling that legalised abortion in the US 40 years ago was correct.
Mr Kerry, who is divorced from his first wife, also supports civil unions for gay couples, advocates euthanasia, has spoken in favour of a married clergy and supports stem-cell research - all contrary to official Catholic teaching.
Although his position on such matters has raised the ire of the American hierarchy, many US Catholics do subscribe to Mr Kerry's views.
The Catholic vote is considered an important one in the presidential election in November, with most of America's 65 million Catholics concentrated in important states such as California and New York, which carry the most electoral votes.
With religious piety a valued characteristic in public officials in Mr Bush's America, Mr Kerry has been eager to portray himself as devout in recent months, regularly attending Mass on the campaign trial and being photographed at religious ceremonies.
However, the likely Democratic presidential nominee has also been careful not to alienate the more liberal wing of his party.
"I fully intend to practice my religion separately from what I do with respect to my public life and that's the way it ought to be in America," he said last week.
Mr Kerry's words echo Kennedy's 44 years ago in his address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.
In that speech, Kennedy laid to rest the fears of many that he would be a president overly influenced by the Vatican.
He said he believed "in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute". The speech was later credited with contributing to his win.