Vatican document is fuel for US election debate

The Vatican's new document is bound to provide more fodder for the abortion debate in the US presidential campaign, holding that Catholics must not cooperate with practices contrary to God's law.

The position on politics, morality and conscientious objection was restated forcefully in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

The book, a statement of many Church teachings on a wide array of issues, calls abortion "a horrendous crime (which) constitutes a particularly serious moral disorder".

In a section certain to be music to the ears of anti-abortion activists, the compendium said:

"It is a grave duty of conscience not to cooperate, not even formally, in practices which, although permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to the Law of God."

"Such cooperation in fact can never be justified, not by invoking respect for the freedom of others nor by appealing to the fact that it is foreseen and required by civil law."

Abortion, along with the war in Iraq, has become a hot-button issue in the campaign ahead of next Tuesday's vote.

Senator John Kerry, a Roman Catholic, says he is "pro-choice but not pro-abortion" and that he cannot impose his views on those who do not share his faith. President George W. Bush, a Methodist, is against abortion except in certain circumstances.

Some conservative American Catholics have gone as far as suing Mr Kerry for heresy in a Church court in Boston and asserting that he has excommunicated himself from the Church because of his stand on abortion rights.

The new compendium, a guidebook for Catholics around the world, dedicated an entire chapter to the role of the political community. It included topics such as the relationship between divine law and human law.

"Authority must be guided by the moral law. All of its dignity derives from its being exercised within the context of the moral order, which in turn has God for its first source and final end," it said.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception and ends at the instant of natural death.

The book says that certain moral values, such as the defence of life in all its stages, cannot change simply to suit "majority opinions" but must be recognised as elements of "the natural law written in the human heart".

It added: "No one can escape the moral responsibility for action taken, and all will be judged by God himself based on this responsibility."