When in April last year Douglas Kmiec was denied Communion, he commented to Catholic News Service: "To be separated from the body of Christ is a faith torture. I don't wish that on anyone."
Kmiec is a high-level Catholic academic. He was dean and St Thomas More professor at Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, and director of the Center on Law and Government at the University of Notre Dame Law School. He is currently professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
US President Barack Obama has just been nominated him to be US ambassador to Malta. The nomination has to be confirmed by the US Senate.
Kmiec is a convinced pro-lifer, and as a former Reagan administration attorney, he once wrote the government's legal briefs seeking the reversal of Roe vs Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion throughout the US.
In the primaries for the 2008 presidential race, Kmiec originally supported the Republican candidate Mitt Romney but after Romney's elimination he turned to Obama. He even wrote a book - Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Questions about Barack Obama to explain how a pro-life Catholic could back Obama despite the latter's support to keep abortion legal.
Kmiec argued that for more than 30 years, many people, including himself, had tried to reverse Roe vs Wade without making progress, and there was no hope of succeeding. Besides, he said, the overthrow of Roe did not mean that lives would be saved. It would just shift the decision to the level of the individual US states.
Kmiec said his endorsement of Obama did not mean he now supported abortion. He noted that he and Obama disagree on "important fundamentals", including legislation about traditional marriage and that life begins at conception. However, he said that in this imperfect world we have to pursue the art of the possible.
For Kmiec, Obama's policies would mean a de facto reduction in the number of abortions because his reforms would reduce the social or economic reasons that led some people to have an abortion.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver was among the most vocal critics of Kmiec. Speaking in a personal capacity, Chaput said that "to suggest - as some Catholics do - that Senator Obama is this year's 'real' pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse".
The priest who denied Communion to Kmien agreed with Chaput. Others did not. Tod Tamberg, spokesman of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, had told journalists that the priest's action in refusing Communion to Kmiec "was absolutely indefensible". The priest later apologised, after the intervention of Cardinal Mahony.
The position taken by Kmiec, which is also shared by others, brings to the fore the difficult position that Catholic politicians are faced with in contemporary society. Politics is the art of the possible; to what extent can one find a workable compromise in difficult situations?
Different people in the Church can reach different positions. Such situations are potentially divisive. A lot of tolerance and love should guide the attempts of Catholics to move forward in such situations.