By Craig Hooper

The civic-minded, neighborhood-building legacy of the Catholic Church is one of the reasons Dorchester produces a disproportionate number of Boston's major political figures. Former Senate President William Bulger, former Mayor Ray Flynn, Congressional leader John W. McCormack and the much-loved Congressman Joe Moakley relied upon Dorchester's Catholic community. Without campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, organizer Michael J. Whouley and an array of other aides tempered in this neighborhood's white-hot political forge, Senator John Kerry's campaign would have expired last December.

So why is the Catholic Church so uneager to celebrate the civic and political contributions made by this historically Catholic community? Why is John Kerry, a Catholic himself, and surrounded by Dorchester-raised aides, being forced to dodge attacks from his fellow Catholics? The attacks are highly publicized, and Catholic authorities like St. Louis Archbishop Bishop Raymond Burke and Atlanta Archbishop John Donoghue are among the Catholic critics, widely promoting, in thinly-veiled anti-Kerry swipes, their refusal to grant communion to pro-choice politicians.

This unseemly squabble over personal faith is a consequence of long-term Church disarray. Legal settlements over the child molestation scandal pushed the Church to the brink of financial ruin and reform-minded lay groups like the Voice of the Faithful are gathering momentum. A stunning leadership vacuum has fed disillusionment in the pews, leading practicing Catholics to lapse or join other congregations untainted by malaise. The constant drumbeat of expectation that Pope John Paul II might either die or step down made matters worse. Today, Vatican bureaucracy is consumed by infighting as parties jockey to pick the successor to ailing and tired Pope John Paul II.

The Bush/Cheney team saw an opening and moved quickly to exploit Catholic disorder. The day after the 2001 inauguration, Bush political advisor Karl Rove invited Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to a meeting with the President - a meeting that ultimately involved National Security Adviser Condolezza Rice, White House counsel Al Gonzales and, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "an assemblage of bishops and cardinals." In the months after the inauguration, Mr. Rove, with national news stories detailing the importance the Republican Party attached to Catholic voters, wooed Church leaders with an appeal for "values."

The Catholic Church was receptive. So much so, that little more than a year after Candidate George Bush faced scathing criticism for campaigning at Bob Jones University, an institution that called the Catholic Church a "Satanic cult," the President was busily reaching out to the wider Catholic community. He started with a March 2001 appeal to pro-life Catholics at an address for the Catholic University's Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. It was a first step in an all-out push; since then, Karl Rove let nothing impede his effort to insure domestic Catholics turn out and support Republicans in 2004.

The push for domestic Catholic voters had an international facet. At the Vatican, former GOP Chairman, Jim Nicholson, was installed as the US Ambassador to the Holy See. This shadowy political operative, a prominent figure in Republican efforts to bring down President William J. Clinton, worked tirelessly to curry pro-Bush sentiment in the upper echelons of the Catholic bureaucracy.

Ambassador Nicholson's work paid off, encouraging Catholic doctrinarians and likely emboldening Catholic functionaries to mute Pope John Paul II's virulent and often-expressed opposition to the Iraq war. But not content to rely solely upon the influence of a pro-Bush Ambassador, the White House used every available governmental resource to better interpret the inner workings of the Vatican and help engineer the promotion of Church leaders likely to support the Bush/Cheney campaign.

The Catholic Church succumbed to this politically motivated courtship. And now, in the heated political season, John Kerry's Catholic legacy and lifetime of friendly relations with the Catholic Church appear to mean nothing. Dorchester's important role in shaping and creating the candidate and his staff are being overlooked as well.

Over the years, Senator John Kerry supported matters at the heart of Catholicism and the Catholic community. Senator Kerry tried to protect Catholic clergy, working, in 1989, to cut off US aid to El Salvador until the government there brought to trial the Salvadorian-sponsored killers of six Jesuit priests. Eight years later, Senator Kerry worked to shut down the School of the Americas, a training facility whose graduates were involved in several atrocities, including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the murder of 3 American nuns from the Roman Catholic Maryknoll order, and the massacre of the Jesuits.

John Kerry is a staunch supporter of religious freedom. When two devout Roman Catholics were fired for refusing to work on Christmas Day, it was Senator John Kerry, in 1997, who worked to strengthen federal protections for workers wishing to celebrate deeply held religious holidays. Senator Kerry maintained a low-profile relationship with Cardinal Law, and worked with the Cardinal to make increased religious freedom in Vietnam a condition for the resumption of relations with that former enemy. As a senator, John Kerry focused on using American influence to create safe environments for the Catholic Church to build congregationsócongregations that ultimately lead to thriving, democratically committed communities just like Dorchester.

It is easy for Bishops to use John Kerry and Communion as a way to distract parishioners and smooth over divisions within their own administrative districts. Archbishop Donoghue is such a controversial figure that his archdiocese uses the Christmas holiday to mask the Archbishop's divisive decisions. In late December 2003, Archbishop Donoghue said that the Voice of the Faithfulís Atlanta Chapter was no longer welcome to meet on Church Property. Three years earlier, Donoghue used the Christmas Holiday to tell pro-choice Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis that his presence was no longer welcome at a celebration of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. These evasive attempts to muffle controversy donít build community. They build resentment and division.

Archbishop Burke, another Catholic leader who embraced the Communion controversy, is embroiled in a battle to seize control of St. Stanislaus Kostka, an independently managed and largely Polish Church. Dissenters accuse the Archbishop of wanting to loot nine million dollars of assets held by the local parish. Members of Bostonís Catholic Community made similar accusations about the impending closure of Hyde Park's St Pius X, but Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley took a higher road, weathering the criticism while simultaneously instructing his congregations to help defuse a spate of city-wide youth violence. Even though Archbishop O'Malley is adamantly against abortion, he has kept his feelings about communion low-key and his thoughts about the Presidential campaign to himself.

Archbishop O'Malley appears more interested in what the Church can do, so rather than spend time listing the things forbidden to his flock, he challenges. Renaming united parishes of St. Margaret and St. Williams after Mother Theresa is an example. His choice was an implicit summons to build a better neighborhood- and through that, become better Catholics. To O'Malley, a good way to build Catholic unity is through a shared civic challenge.

The Vatican is well advised to follow O'Malley's example and begin celebrating the positive. The bonds between the Catholic Church and the Kerry/Edwards campaign are still strong. If Senator Kerry wins, the Catholic Church will do more good and inspire more Catholics by challenging the Kerry/Edwards Administration to succeed at their work rather than focusing on what Catholics cannot do. Catholics can and desperately want to do great things. If we set our minds to the job, even a single, small, Catholic-influenced neighborhood in Boston can help in sending one of our own to the White House. That's the sort of Catholic legacy to celebrate.

Craig Hooper is a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Public Health. He lives on Sagamore Street in Dorchester.