In Communion With Kerry

By The Prowler
Published 4/13/2004 12:07:16 AM

EASTER BUNNY
Sen. John Kerry did indeed receive the sacrament of communion during Easter Sunday services, and made sure his presidential campaign press people told reporters about it. Kerry has been thumbing his nose at Roman Catholic bishops, who of late have been complaining the Kerry should not be receiving the sacraments given his public support of abortion.

But Kerry's latest foray into showing off his faith has revealed interesting political aspects that more people should know about.

As one might expect from an elitist, when home in Boston, Kerry does not attend a traditional Roman Catholic parish church. Rather, he attends Mass at the Paulist Center, a pseudo-theological institute and home for wayward Catholics that operates on Beacon Hill, near Kerry's home.

The Center, which includes a small chapel, is known as a hotbed for old-line liberation theology holdouts from the 1970s and 1980s. "When the radicalized Maryknoll seminaries came under investigation by the Vatican for their continued teaching of liberation theology back in the 1980s, these folks in Boston picked up the mantle," says a priest in the Boston archdiocese. "We don't have straight oversight of the place."

The Paulist Center features a number of adherents of the liberation philosophy, which played a pivotal role in the Marxist uprisings in El Salvador and Nicaragua back in the late 1970s and 1980s. A number of far-left Jesuits are regular speakers at the Center, which lately has featured classes on "Tapas Acupuncture" techniques and a series of lectures of how best to remove the Church hierarchy in order to evolve the Catholic Church into a nontraditional democracy.

Kerry's attendance at the Paulist Center, besides its close proximity to home, was thought by some Catholics to be an attempt to avoid any embarrassing run-ins with the Boston Diocese, which in the past has expressed its displeasure with Kerry for his pro-abortion positions.

That said, it was the Kerry campaign's idea to look for ways to highlight the candidate's rebellious position in the church by looking for a conservative diocese or parish that would refuse him communion in front of press.

Are we to assume that there are no "conservative" parishes in Boston? He had the perfect opportunity while he was here in St. Louis but, instead he went to a non-Catholic Church, instead...All talk? Maybe it wasn't the right time? Besides, he had some serious preachin' to do.