The pot continues to be stirred over the question of whether the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Senator John Kerry, will or will not be denied Holy Communion when he attends Mass in various parts of the country.

If truth be told, however, the abortion issue is likely to have little or no impact on the outcome of this year's election. Indeed, in Senator Kerry's full-hour interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" last month, neither abortion nor the Catholic Church were even mentioned.

Those Catholics who have personal contempt for Senator Kerry would have voted for President Bush's reelection no matter whom the Democrats nominated this year. Conversely, it is unlikely that Catholics for whom Iraq and the economy are of primary concern will support the President's reelection because of Senator Kerry's votes on abortion-related legislation.

Nevertheless, the nomination of a liberal Democrat who happens also to be Catholic is a godsend to the most militant wing of the pro-life movement. If it weren't for Senator Kerry, the abortion issue would rarely if ever have been mentioned in this campaign.

President Bush is already on record against his party's mounting any effort to secure a constitutional ban on abortions. He knows that, while the majority of Americans favors some restrictions on abortion, an equal or greater majority opposes an outright ban.

Moreover, almost no one, except those on the fringes of the pro-life movement, wants to criminalize the procedure, putting their daughters and her doctors (and whomever else) at risk of going off to prison.

Indeed, if abortion is murder, then it would also be a capital crime for which the normal punishment in many states, including Texas, is execution.

The moral inconsistency of some abortion opponents becomes acutely evident at this point. They do not want their daughters convicted of a crime and sent off to prison, much less executed, if they should have an abortion. And they also know that such an idea could never be sold to the American people, even to those who find abortion morally repugnant.

This year's Republican platform may repeat the party's pledge to outlaw all abortions, but its candidate will not risk alienating the soccer moms, suburban Republican women, and the many undecided voters in the swing states by advocating a position that the great majority of the electorate opposes, namely, a constitutional amendment banning all abortions, everywhere in the nation.

Will the U.S. Catholic bishops, however, step up to the proverbial plate and, without the political inhibitions of the President, take a clear stand against Catholic politicians who, like Senator Kerry, have cast votes which, in their minds, have the effect of promoting the termination of innocent human life?

A recent guest on "The O'Reilly Factor" seemed to be as critical of the bishops as he was of Senator Kerry at one point in his interview. He insisted that, if the bishops were not to take action against Senator Kerry and other Catholic politicians by denying them Communion, it would be a source of scandal for the average Catholic in the pew.

But the bishops are not likely to formulate a national policy on this matter --- at least not before the election. If any such action were taken against Senator Kerry, it would be, in effect, an endorsement of President Bush's reelection. And this would be directly contrary to a policy which the Administrative Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated and restated every four years, since 1980.

Prior to the 1984 election, when President Ronald Reagan was opposed for reelection by former Vice President Walter Mondale (whose running mate was a Catholic, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro), the bishops repeated the words of their 1980 statement, namely, that the bishops "do not wish to instruct persons on how they should vote by endorsing candidates."

However, because of the controversial interventions of some high-ranking prelates during the 1984 campaign and the appearance they created of political partisanship, the bishops in their statement of 1987 --- and in every quadrennial statement since then, including 2003 --- added the words "or opposing" to the text.

"We do not wish to instruct persons on how they should vote by endorsing or opposing candidates. We hope that voters will examine the position of candidates on the full range of issues as well as on their personal integrity, philosophy and performance. We are convinced that a consistent ethic of life should be the moral framework from which to address issues in the political arena."

The practical wisdom of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin permeates that text.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.