Tip O’Neill used to love to tell a story about President Kennedy’s appearance at a convention of the Catholic Youth Organization. Asked by O’Neill to stop by the event, the president agreed, provided he could get in and out quickly – show up, speak to the kids and leave. But, the late speaker of the House recounted in his autobiography, once Kennedy arrived he was informed that some Catholic bishops as well as a group of nuns would like to greet him. “The nuns I’ll see,” O’Neill remembers Kennedy replying, “But not the bishops. They all vote Republican.”

That clear-eyed view of party preference in the hierarchy explains what some bishops are up to right now: partisan politics. As a result of the pronouncements by a few bishops that they would deny John Kerry Holy Communion in their dioceses, the media has set up what’s being called – not very tastefully – a “wafer watch” to clock when and where the Democratic presidential candidate receives the Eucharist.