In the 2004 US elections, the US catholic church warned that they would not give communion to politicians who voted in favour of abortion legislation. Last week, a Scottish Bishop said that UK MPs should not take communion if they vote for abortion legislation (a difference but still a problem) and yesterday the Catholic Bishop of Cardiff supported the Scottish Bishop’s statement.

This shows the big problem with Catholics standing for political office. They are elected to represent their constituents and while their own conscience should come into their decisions on how to vote on legislation (after all, their conscience is one of the things their constituents should be trying to gauge when voting for them) they should not be blackmailed by a religious group to vote in one way or another on the basis of the “orders” of the church, or blackmail about excluding them from religious worship. Catholics should think twice about standing for elected office while maintaining their membership of the Catholic church in this way. It’s one thing for the church to put forth their point of view, and even to lobby MPs and ministers in the same way that any other group does. But singling out individual MPs who happen to be members of their church and placing individual pressure on them to follow church doctrine rather than their assessment of the views and needs of their constituents makes membership of the Catholic church incompatible with the freedom of conscience necessary to be a representative of the people.