I think the GOP attempt to legalize electioneering from the pulpit (see Urgent Action Alert or scroll down the page to it) needs a little context. This attempt by Hastert and DeLay hasn't happened in a vacuum. This is a premeditated and deliberate campaign by certain factions of the GOP to do an end run around the Constitutional separation of Church and State.

A plan by the George W. Bush reelection campaign to enlist 1,600 "friendly" houses of worship in Pennsylvania is a misguided attempt to build a church-based political machine that should be dropped immediately, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Americans United asserts that the plan jeopardizes the tax-exempt status of churches and could divide congregations with partisan politics. Bush Campaign Attempting To Forge Church-Based Political Machine

Having been exposed in Pennsylvania, the Bush/Cheney04 strategists appear to have taken a two-pronged approach to getting around the Constitutional obstacle.

1. Rewrite Federal tax law to allow politicking from the pulpit. This was the subject of the NCC's Urgent Action Alert.

2. Steve at I like to write points us to a recent report in the National Catholic Reporter:

During his June 4 visit, Bush asked the Vatican to push the American Catholic bishops to be more aggressive politically on family and life issues, especially a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

A Vatican official told NCR June 9 that in his meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano and other Vatican officials, Bush said, “Not all the American bishops are with me” on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism.

Other sources in the meeting said that while they could not recall the president’s exact words, he did pledge aggressive efforts on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican’s help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken.

According to sources, Sodano did not respond to the request. Source: The Word From Rome June 4, 2004

This at a time when some American Catholic Bishops are already engaged in partisan politics by publically focusing attention on whether Catholics who publically support gay marriage and abortion ought to receive the Eucharist while glibly ignoring those Catholics who publically support the Death Penalty - which the Vatican is formally opposed to. In fact this very same Pope appealed to, then Texas Governor, George W. Bush to spare the life of convicted murderer and Death Row inmate Karla Fay Tucker. Not only did Bush decline the Pope's appeal, but he went on to publically mock Tucker's appeal for clemency. As the New York Press notes, in Kerry's a Bad Catholic, there are many more issues which the Vatican strongly and very publically support which Bush and most Republicans just as strongly and just as publically oppose.

In an opinion piece published by the National Catholic Reporter, Joan Chittister seeks to answer the question: Is John Kerry a good Catholic?. Citing six different Popes and a formal Bishop's position paper, Joan Chittister forcefully yet eloquently demolishes the argument that Catholics can't in good conscience vote for John Kerry.