(2004-03-29) — The strict anti-abortion stance of Pope John Paul II is “tragically not nuanced,” according to U.S. Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry, a practicing Roman Catholic.
“I pray for an America where rosary beads are sold in abortion clinic gift shops,” said Mr. Kerry. “But I won’t be a Catholic president, or even, as John F. Kennedy called himself, ‘a president who happens to be Catholic’. I will be a president who happens to say he is Catholic but doesn’t feel constrained by the black-and-white teachings of a church which is the bedrock of values, of sureness about who I am.”
Mr. Kerry made the remarks as he left Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Flexible Doctrine.
“I dream of a nation that honors people who understand the difference between personal beliefs and public actions,” said Mr. Kerry, who just last week hurried back to the Senate chambers to vote against a bill that makes harming a fetus a criminal offense. “All during that Senate vote, I was meditating on the rosary…you know, quietly repeating ‘Hail Marys’ and ‘Our Fathers,’ etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.”
