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Meanwhile, those very bishops will be meeting this week in Colorado to discuss, among other things, Roman Catholic politicians like Kerry who oppose key Catholic teachings. Articles previewing the closed meeting are legion, but Time's Tumulty gives a decent summary:

The bishops will hear from a task force, led by Washington Archbishop Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, that is supposed to give them a set of guidelines on the issue shortly after the election. McCarrick has said he has "not gotten comfortable" with the idea of confronting anyone at the altar, even as he has asserted that Catholics conscious of grave sin should not take Communion. The antiabortion group American Life League responded in early May with full-page newspaper ads in the Washington Times featuring a picture of the crucified Christ and asking, Cardinal McCarrick: Are You Comfortable Now?

Near the end of Tumulty's story is this observation:

Some say there is even a double standard at work. For all the attention that has been given Kerry's problems with the clergy of his church, "there have not been an equal number of stories about the way Bush has ignored his own faith group, the United Methodist Church, by declining to accept a delegation of bishops that wanted to talk to him about the war," says Philip Amerson, president of the Claremont School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in Claremont, Calif.

What this ignores—and thereby constitutes a major miscommunication to readers—is that there's a massive difference in Catholic and Methodist attitudes toward the relationship of the believer to his bishop. Furthermore, Bush could have easily communicated with Methodist leaders who supported his Iraq actions—the difference between Catholic dogma on abortion and Methodist opinion on Iraq is so huge that to equate the two is ridiculous. But in doing so, Tumulty raises an interesting question: is it possible that Kerry would be a better United Methodist than he would a Roman Catholic? Is Bush closer to Catholicism than to United Methodism?

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