"And Now, Sunday With Stephen Stills..."

Don't know the appropriate Scripture to offer up here.

The gospel according to Buffalo Springfield comes pretty close, though.

More on that..and the weekend weather...coming up...


PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.

"The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion.

He declined to say when or how Tobin told him not to take the sacrament. And he declined to say whether he has obeyed the bishop's injunction.

Church law permits Tobin to ban Kennedy from receiving Communion within the Diocese of Providence, which covers Rhode Island, but he cannot stop Kennedy from receiving Communion elsewhere. It was unclear whether bishops overseeing Washington and Massachusetts, where Kennedy's family has a seaside compound, would issue similar bans.

Kennedy could appeal the decision to officials in the Vatican, but the hierarchy of the Catholic church is unlikely to overturn a bishop, said Michael Sean Winters, a church observer and author of "Left At the Altar: How Democrats Lost The Catholics And How Catholics Can Save The Democrats."

"It's really bad theology," said Winters, who opposes abortion. "You're turning the altar rail into a battle field, a political battlefield no less, and it does a disservice to the Eucharist."

The dispute between the two men began in October when Kennedy in an interview on CNSNews.com criticized the nation's Catholic bishops for threatening to oppose a massive expansion of the nation's health care system unless it included tighter restrictions on federally funded abortion.

Kennedy voted against an amendment to a Democratic health care plan sought by the bishops. But he voted in favor of a health care plan that included the amendment he opposed.

Tobin, the spiritual leader of the nation's most heavily Roman Catholic state, demanded an apology from Kennedy after learning of his remarks and requested a meeting.

"While I greatly respect the Catholic Church and its leaders, like many Rhode Islanders, the fact that I disagree with the hierarchy of the church on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic," Kennedy wrote in a letter to Tobin, agreeing to a sitdown. "I embrace my faith which acknowledges the existence of an imperfect humanity."

Their meeting fell apart. While Tobin called it a mutual decision, Kennedy accused Tobin of failing to abide by an agreement to stop discussing the congressman's faith publicly.

Tobin followed up with a biting public letter published in a diocesan newspaper.

"Sorry, you can't chalk it up to an 'imperfect humanity.' Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your Communion with the Church," Tobin wrote.

In subsequent interviews, Tobin said Kennedy should not receive Communion like other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Still, the bishop stopped short of ordering Kennedy not to receive the sacrament.

Discussing, debating and/or arguing religion or politics is, obviously, an exercise in futility.

What we do believe, we tend to believe passionately and passionate beliefs tend to hang on to our consciousness like grim death.

Simply put, I'm not going to change your mind and you're not going to change mine.

So, all I can do is offer my opinion.

I think Patrick Kennedy wants to have it both ways.

If Roman Catholic doctrine dictates that abortion is a sin, then you can't support abortion and be a "good" Catholic.

You're either a practicing Catholic or you're not.

You can't be a "little bit" pregnant.

Admittedly not the best metaphor to offer at the moment.

But if Kennedy openly supports abortion rights, then trying to profess his devotion to Catholicism is wrong.

That said, it's not unfair to ask if the bishop makes it a practice to deny Communion to every one in his flock who expresses support for abortion rights or, for that matter, exhibits any behavior that could be honestly intrepreted as "un-Catholic".

Or is he only shining a harsh light on a Kennedy to politicize the issue and make the pulpit a bully pulpit?

If he's doing that, then what he's doing is wrong.

But, two wrongs, you know...

Or, as Buffalo Springfield put it...

"Nobody's right / when everybody's wrong..."