Catholics who support Bush hold first daily Mass

NEW YORK – Roman Catholics who back President Bush held the first of their daily Masses Sunday during the Republican National Convention, highlighting their presence as the candidates vie for the Catholic vote.

The services are not official convention events and no political endorsements were made during worship at the Church of Our Savior, one mile from Madison Square Garden where the convention starts today.

But the Masses are listed on a schedule distributed among conventioneers by the volunteer Catholic Working Group, which is helping Bush’s drive for the Catholic vote and has opened a hospitality suite in the convention hall.

The Rev. George Rutler, who led the Sunday service, said during his sermon that political debate in the United States had become “nasty” because the country was engaged in “spiritual warfare” over preserving human life.

Democrat John Kerry, who is Catholic, supports abortion rights. At least four bishops have said that lawmakers who back legalized abortion should be denied Communion and one prelate – Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis – has said he would refuse to give the sacrament to Kerry.

Bush is a Methodist whose position on abortion is more in line with Catholic teaching.

Kerry has said he is personally opposed to abortion but does not want to impose church doctrine on the American public.

About one-quarter of the electorate is Catholic and many live in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. Bush split the Catholic vote in 2000 with Democrat Al Gore and has been courting Catholics ever since.