On May 23, 2004, AFP posted an article titled: "Kennedy's
Wife Slams Church Moves Against Pro-Choice Catholics."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040523/ts_alt_afp/us_vote_kennedy_politics_040523224750
__________________________________________________________________________
Excerpts:
"The wife of prominent US Senator Ted Kennedy decried
as 'dangerous' recent statements by Catholic clergy
saying they would deny communion to Catholics who
support abortion rights.

"'As a Catholic, I am deeply saddened and concerned
by the threatened denial of communion to pro-choice
Catholic politicians. This course of action takes
both the church and political discourse in this
country to a new and dangerous place, and I urge
that it be rejected,' wrote Victoria Reggie Kennedy
in an opinion piece in Sunday's Washington Post.

"The issue has become one of the most heated talking
points in the presidential election campaign, after
a Vatican official called on priests to stop granting
communion to politicians who vote for abortion rights,
including Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Demo-
cratic presidential nominee.

"Kennedy wrote that there is latitude in church teachings
for Catholics to follow their conscience on the abortion
issue, saying that 'freedom-of-conscience provisions ...
are integral to the practice of our Catholic faith.'
__________________________________________________________________________

Papa Jack comments;
I am not Catholic, so I'm unsure of Catholic beliefs. But,
I thought that the Pope was considered infallible when
speaking thru

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html

"Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder,
genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever
violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation,
torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will
itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living
conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery,
prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as
disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere
instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all
these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison
human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than
to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme
dishonour to the Creator".5

All this is causing a profound change in the way in which life and
relationships between people are considered. The fact that legislation
in many countries, perhaps even departing from basic principles of
their Constitutions, has determined not to punish these practices
against life, and even to make them altogether legal, is both a
disturbing symptom and a significant cause of grave moral decline.
Choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the
common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable. Even
certain sectors of the medical profession, which by its calling is
directed to the defence and care of human life, are increasingly
willing to carry out these acts against the person. In this way the
very nature of the medical profession is distorted and contradicted,
and the dignity of those who practise it is degraded. In such a
cultural and legislative situation, the serious demographic, social
and family problems which weigh upon many of the world's peoples and
which require responsible and effective attention from national and
international bodies, are left open to false and deceptive solutions,
opposed to the truth and the good of persons and nations.

On May 23, 2004, AFP posted an article titled: "Kennedy's
Wife Slams Church Moves Against Pro-Choice Catholics."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040523/ts_alt_afp/us_vote_kennedy_politics_040523224750
__________________________________________________________________________
Excerpts:
"The wife of prominent US Senator Ted Kennedy decried
as 'dangerous' recent statements by Catholic clergy
saying they would deny communion to Catholics who
support abortion rights.

"'As a Catholic, I am deeply saddened and concerned
by the threatened denial of communion to pro-choice
Catholic politicians. This course of action takes
both the church and political discourse in this
country to a new and dangerous place, and I urge
that it be rejected,' wrote Victoria Reggie Kennedy
in an opinion piece in Sunday's Washington Post.
__________________________________________________________________________

I am not Catholic, so I'm unsure of Catholic beliefs.