New score card rates Catholic senators' votes on various issues

Published: 2004-06-03

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- One of the two dozen Catholics in the U.S. Senate has released a score card analyzing how his fellow Catholic senators voted on 24 issues of interest to the Catholic Church, but one of those senators has criticized the effort as "a deliberate and cynical attempt to mislead" Catholic voters. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said at a June 2 news conference that his staff prepared the score card as a way to help Catholics "fulfill their moral obligation to participate in the development of public policies addressing the full range of issues that are Catholic priorities for public life." But Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., called the score card "an abuse of (Durbin's) office" and said it was "an attempt to make (Sen. John F.) Kerry and a host of other Democrats look like faithful Catholics." Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is the likely Democratic nominee for president, received the highest score of all 24 Catholic senators in the analysis. Durbin was second and Santorum was 20th. Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, secretary of communications for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had no immediate comment on the score card.

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