George Orwell etched the year 1984 in literary history with the publication of his novel of that title some 35 years before. It painted a grim picture of a future world in the iron grip of a totalitarian government. "Big Brother" was always watching.

Orwell's 1984 never materialized in precisely the way that he had imagined, but the year was not without its dangerous elements. The United States and the Soviet Union were still engaged in the Cold War, with nuclear warheads aimed at one another. The year before, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter, "The Challenge of Peace," in an effort to shed some moral light on the situation.

If 1984 did not usher in the reign of "Big Brother," it did introduce --- for Catholic politicians at least --- a "Big Bother" in the form of the abortion issue. As in 1984, most Catholic politicians today would prefer to discuss almost any other issue --- the economy, the war in Iraq, the environment, education --- than abortion. But there it is on the table, and no one has thus far received permission, like dutiful children, to leave it.

In both 1984 and 2004 the political controversy over abortion was initially stirred by the pro-life side, which shrewdly seized the opportunity to showcase the issue under the klieg lights of a presidential campaign.

It should be noted, however, that abortion was not a significant issue in the 1988 campaign, when there were no Catholics on either ticket, nor again in 1992, even though the Democratic candidate, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, was strongly pro-choice while the incumbent President, George H. W. Bush, was at least nominally pro-life. Without a Catholic on either ticket, the abortion issue had no traction.

In fact, ever since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, abortion has been a major campaign issue in the only two presidential election years when one of the four major-party candidates was a Catholic.

In 2004, the first shots fired across the bow of the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, came from a newly appointed archbishop, acting on his own initiative and authority. The volley came in the form of a threat that the senator would be denied Holy Communion if he were to approach the altar during Mass in the archdiocese of St. Louis.

A handful of other bishops quickly followed suit, but then silence. There were no other episcopal takers. Instead, a few high-ranking prelates --- Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, and even Senator Kerry's own archbishop in Boston, Sean O'Malley --- made it clear that they did not approve of the Eucharist's being withheld for punitive purposes.

In 1984, when the Democrats nominated a Catholic, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, for Vice President, it was another newly appointed archbishop who launched the opening salvo. During a press conference in New York City, the soon-to-be Cardinal John O'Connor was asked by a reporter representing an ultra-conservative Catholic newspaper if he would consider excommunicating then-Governor Mario Cuomo for his views on abortion.

Instead of dismissing the idea out of hand, the new archbishop dignified the question with a long and circuitous answer which amounted to: "I'd have to think about that."

The next day, in reply to another reporter's question, the archbishop said that, in his opinion, a Catholic could not in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate because, regardless of one's personal views, pro-choice is equivalently pro-abortion.

There followed a see-saw of interviews back and forth between Governor Cuomo and Archbishop O'Connor, with the media relishing every minute of it. A subsequent statement from the then-president of the Conference of Bishops, James Malone, of Youngstown, Ohio, seemed to come down on both sides of the question, but insisted in the end that religion should not be injected into the political campaign. The plea fell on the proverbial deaf ears.

Joseph Sullivan, auxiliary bishop of the diocese of Brooklyn, also intervened in the debate, making a point that was generally ignored in 1984, except in Governor's Cuomo's widely publicized speech at the University of Notre Dame. The point is still ignored today, some 20 years later.

"The major problem the church has is internal," Bishop Sullivan insisted. "As much as I think we're responsible for advocating public policy issues, our primary responsibility is to teach our own people. We haven't done that. We're asking politicians to do what we haven't done effectively ourselves."

It is always easier, of course, to blame others outside the institutional church for failures within --- in this case, the failure of pastoral leaders to make an effective moral case with their own people.

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