c. 2004 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The Republican National Committee has sent a letter to Catholic leaders urging them to get involved in the presidential campaign and announcing the start of a “Catholic Outreach Tour.”

The letter has annoyed a church-and-state watchdog group that has accused Republicans of manipulating religion for partisan politics. In June, the Bush-Cheney campaign sent an e-mail to supporters asking them to “identify 1,600 `friendly congregations”’ that might distribute campaign information.

According to the letter, the Catholic Outreach Tour is intended to “highlight how the Republican Party is most in line with Catholic values, and how Catholics can get involved.”

Tara Wall, a spokeswoman for the RNC, said the tour will travel to four “target states” with large Catholic populations: Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

President Bush, a United Methodist, is campaigning against Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a Catholic.

But Wall said, “We believe Catholic voters will support Bush’s message of faith-based initiatives, family values (and) the sanctity of human life.”

The tour is “a key part of our ongoing efforts to mobilize and increase the Catholic grass-roots network,” the June 28 letter from the RNC says.

Federal election guidelines generally declare that as long as religious leaders do not endorse candidates from their pulpits and a congregation’s space is not used for partisan political rallies, religious organizations will not jeopardize their tax-exempt status.

However, groups like the Interfaith Alliance say that when political campaigns target religious groups, they “desacralize” them.

“This is another instance of a campaign using questionable tactics to target a specific denomination,” said Don Parker, a spokesman for the alliance, in an interview.

“It’s not respectful to Catholics or religion in general.”

According to the RNC’s letter _ provided to Religion News Service by the Washington-based alliance _ the featured events on the tour will be attended by prominent Catholic lawmakers such as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn.

The events are closed to the press. A spokeswoman for the RNC refused to say where they were being held or who would be attending.

Dennis McGrath, the director of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said that he had received a call from Kennedy’s office asking him to attend an event. A spokeswoman for Kennedy said that the RNC’s event was to be held at a bar and restaurant in Minnesota on Thursday (July 1).

McGrath said that he would not attend the event and that his archdiocese was taking every precaution to align itself with issues, not politicians.

“We have dialogues all the time with people on both sides of the aisle about abortion, stem-cell research and other matters that are important to us as Catholics,” he said. “But we would never take a position on a political party.”

In a separate but related development, The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign has distributed an instruction sheet to religious volunteers with almost two dozen “duties” to perform by particular dates. Among the requests are that they send church directories to state campaign headquarters, hold potluck dinners related to the campaign with church members, and recruit additional volunteers from their churches for the campaign.

Tax experts and a church-state separationist group questioned the effort.

“Injecting partisan politics into our nation’s sanctuaries is a desecration of sacred space,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a statement.

“Politicizing churches is morally wrong and legally dubious. The Bush campaign should repent of this reckless scheme.”

DEA/PH END BURKE