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As Democrats and Republicans work hard to woo Catholic voters for the presidential election, Greensburg Bishop Lawrence E. Brandt is warning his flock to be wary of their "intellectual sleight of hand."

Months after other bishops in the United States announced they would withhold communion from elected officials who support abortion, Brandt spelled out the church's teachings -- and the Greensburg diocese's position -- in a pastoral letter last week to its 188,000 faithful.

The timing of the release of the letter -- one week before the Republican National Convention -- was coincidental, said Angela Burrows, executive director of infomedia services at the diocese.

Brandt would not comment on the letter, deferring questions to Burrows.

The bishop, who was ordained and installed in March, wrote that any public official who says, "I can vote for abortion and still be a Catholic in good standing," is being intellectually condescending to every Catholic by making himself or herself the sole judge of what "Catholic" means.

That "intellectual sleight of hand" is demeaning to the intelligence of any informed Catholic, he said.

Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the first Catholic nominee since John F. Kennedy, says he's a practicing and believing Catholic who happens to hold positions contrary to the church's teachings. His support of abortion rights and civil unions for gay couples has irked church leaders.

President Bush, a Methodist, is seen as being more in line with Catholic teaching on those issues.

In May, four Catholic bishops jumped into election-year politics by declaring they would withhold communion from elected officials who supported abortion.

That prompted 48 Roman Catholic members of Congress to warn that the bishops could revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny communion to politicians who support abortion rights.

The efforts by the two parties to capture more Catholic votes may succeed, but the larger issue of defining Catholicism around a single issue such as abortion will fail, said Richard L. Wood, director of religious studies at the University of New Mexico and author of "Does Religion Matter? Projecting Democratic Power into the Public Arena."

"To use the Eucharist in this way is quite unusual," he said.

Like his predecessors in the Greensburg diocese, Brandt said he would not endorse or oppose individual political candidates. That does not, however, "abrogate the right and duty of Catholic bishops to speak out on issues in public life and activity, on the local, state or national levels, which touch upon matters of religious faith and moral values," he wrote.

Brandt said it is impossible to separate the two dimensions of a moral life -- the public and the religious -- into distinct spheres that must be kept unrelated.

When such a separation happens, "it leads to a moral schizophrenia which produces dysfunctional citizens and spiritually flawed individuals," he wrote.

"Public" and "religious" must go together, Brandt said. "One without the other means dishonesty. Such a separation means a lack of integrity: not being a whole person."

He said he believes the "moral responsibility for the decision" to receive Holy Communion" should rest with the individual.

"It should not be imposed on the bishop, on the priest, on the deacon, or on the Eucharistic minister," Brandt wrote. "That is 'passing the buck.'"

He said public officials also should voluntarily refrain from presenting themselves as candidates for the positions of lector, extraordinary minister of Holy Communion or other public functions in the life of the church, including being a godparent at baptism or a sponsor at confirmation.

"All of these roles require that a person live a life of faith in conformity with the teachings of the Catholic Church," he said.

At the Republican National Convention in New York, the effort to bring Roman Catholics to the GOP side is in high gear with daily Masses, a private briefing from the party chairman and a special hospitality suite in the convention hall.

America's 63 million Catholics make up one-quarter of the electorate, but they aren't the only religious voting block that will decide the race, said Kimberly Conger, an assistant professor of political science at Iowa State University and author of "Religion in the 2000 Presidential election."

"Evangelicals are playing a part in this election," she said. "Catholics tend to be split among the parties; most evangelicals tend to be Republican. That changes the dynamic."

Wood estimated that evangelicals make up about 25 percent of the population.

Brandt said he is willing to meet with any Catholic candidate or Catholic elected official from the Greensburg diocese to discuss pastoral matters. "We welcome more effective dialogue and engagement with all public officials," he wrote.

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