News of a Catholic priest denying Communion to a prominent legal scholar because he endorsed Sen. Barack Obama has radiated through the media this week. NPR did a piece, Catholic News Service covered it , and the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne put his two cents in.

Douglas Kmiec, a fervent opponent of abortion who worked in Pres. Reagan’s justice department and served as dean of Catholic University’s law school, came out for Obama despite the senator’s support for abortion rights.

News of Catholic bishops threatening to deny the sacrament of Communion to Catholic politicians who support legalized abortion is almost old hat by now. Just last month, Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph Naumann told Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius not to take Communion until she repented of her pro-choice ways.

But it’s unusual-if not unprecedented-for a priest to deny the Eucharist to a private citizen because of his political leanings.

At an April Mass for Catholic businessmen in California Kmiec was confronted by a priest and denied Communion. (Kmiec has not named the priest; a spokesman for Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony says the priest was “wrong” to deny Kmiec Communion, according to NPR.)

Kmiec told NPR that his wife fled in tears; he decried the use “of faith as a weapon.” The point of Communion is community, he said, and the denial was hostile to that idea.

Canon 915 of church law states that Catholics “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Communion.”

I guess the question is: When is supporting pro-choice pols obstinately persisting in that category of sin?

Stay tuned: I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.