Catholic breakfast draws officials

The first National Catholic Prayer Breakfast drew an overflow crowd of more than 1,000 yesterday, including several members of Congress who used the occasion to reinforce the denomination’s stance on hot-button political issues.

However, a few politicians who spoke at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel admitted to some inner turmoil.

“I’m a publicly elected official who’s a Catholic and a Democrat,” said Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan. “It seems that in recent weeks that we’ve been confused as to which comes first: a Catholic Democrat or a Democrat who’s a Catholic. Depending on how you look at it, it can be both a blessing or a curse.”

His father, Mr. Stupak said, “would often say, ’Bart, always remember that the bum on the street may be your boss tomorrow.’ No truer words were ever spoken for those of us who choose to serve in elected office.”

Mr. Stupak’s was the only veiled reference during the two-hour event to the controversy surrounding Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president whose stance on abortion, human stem-cell research and homosexual civil unions contradict church policy. Mr. Kerry insists that he remains a Catholic in good standing with the church. He didn’t attend the breakfast.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Sen Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, said descriptions of his battles on the Senate floor last year to ban partial-birth abortions “sound rather heroic” but weren’t.

“For five years, I was in elected office and never said the word ’abortion’ on the floor of the United States House or the Senate,” he said. “It took a herculean effort on my part just to get up and mumble a few phrases on an issue that should shake every person’s consciousness.”

But it doesn’t, because “one of the reasons American Catholics are not as fervent is because many in our clergy are not as fervent in teaching the faith,” he said.

The statement was aimed at priests and nuns who “teach a culturally influenced American Catholicism, instead of what the true faith is,” the senator said. “Catholics have not been given a proper Catholic formation. Priests get up and talk around issues and not at them.”

The prayer breakfast was modeled after the 52-year-old National Prayer Breakfast, which is evangelical Protestant in style and draws about 5,000 people, including the president and the first lady.

The Catholic version included several “Hail Mary” prayers, a speech by a nun, an exhortation by a local priest for single men to consider the priesthood and a keynote speech by Cardinal Avery Dulles on moral freedom. It was prefaced by a Mass and rosary recitation.

Others at the breakfast included eight members of Congress; Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson; Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie; Tim Goeglin, deputy director of the White House public liaison office; and Matthew Schlapp, director of the White House Office of Public Affairs.