It will be interesting to see if the Catholic Church prosecutes these charges. They seem to have had a policy of not prescribing Catholic politicians' agendas, though this is changing somewhat with the conservative line taken by the current Pope (and, indeed, doesn't look to get any more liberal, with demographic shifts giving more power to conservative bishops in Africa). On the other hand, there are politics to consider; aside from the likelihood of a backlash occurring from any perceived interference in the election, the Vatican is not too fond of Bush (indeed, it has been claimed that the Pope thinks he may be the Antichrist foretold in the Book of Revelation, though this may well be apocryphal), and may not be too keen to shoot down the opposition.
And so begins the Catholic Church's long descent into irrelevency in the US. While their consistent stance on "don't kill people" is laudable (even if I don't always agree), their unbalanced fixation on abortion relative to invading other countries, or the death penalty (both of which they stronly opposed, but to my knowledge have not refused communion to anyone for, c.f. Justice Scalia) looks hypocritical, and their attempts to force the hands of catholic polititians brings new life to decades old predjudices against catholic polititians and the conspicacy theories of a Vatican controlled white house.
As the catholic church tries to run to the hard right, they will find the mormons there, ready to beat them with experience.
AFAIK, the Church aren't behind the charges; it's a private individual. If there's one thing you can't accuse the Catholic Church of, it's political naivete, which means that if they do disapprove of the world's most powerful nation being controlled by the Bush administration, they're not about to shoot down the opposition out of idealism.
The numbers are, I believe, about four US biships who have spoken out against Kerry, about 10 others who are on their side, and about 180 who support Kerry.
ok so 14 to 180 --i am a us catholic- and as much as i dislike the dumb side with conformity people with money who are polite and go to church on sunday US catholic church the thing no one who bashes the church gets is that the church was for 1500 = to western civilization-- they were the people who pased down this alphabet and they passed it down not as a tool to make fucking more money for large corporations but as a way to teach people to read about a guy who talked about love peacefully and for that was murdered by the goverment we use this alphabet WE are western civilization but we have no set of rules by which to say hey these corporations are sinful they are bad they are evil because we threw the baby out with the bath water when we were rightfully annoyed by an orginization that taught masterbation was a sin
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_9_27/ai_108881880