BOSTON — It's just hours before Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will give his acceptance speech before a crowd of 10,000-plus at the Democratic National Convention and a television audience of millions. The speech could make or break his dream of becoming leader of the free world.

What's bothering Kerry at this moment, however, is the fact that working-class hero Ray Flynn said he won't be there for the speech. His absence will be noticeable. He's a popular former Boston mayor, the highest vote-getter in the city's history and the only known politician to win every precinct and ward in a major American city. He's an integral part of the Massachusetts Democratic machine.

Kerry calls and begs Flynn to come.

Flynn was instrumental in putting Kerry in the U.S. Senate in 1984, mobilizing 8,000 volunteers for the campaign. That was long before Kerry voted to support partial-birth abortion, Flynn points out.

Flynn told the Register that he took Kerry's call and told him, “You know how strongly pro-life I am, and I'm disappointed by your stance on abortion.”

But Kerry talked him into attending.

Welcome to the conflicted life of Ray Flynn — a Catholic father of six who, as one-time U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, traveled extensively with Pope John Paul II. He spent the past year as president of Your Catholic Voice, an organization designed to spread Catholic social doctrine.

He is a political man who clings desperately to the hope that his Democratic Party might someday drift his way again — away from the pro-abortion stance it espouses in its platform.

“Most Catholic Democrats, as we all know, have been reduced to summing up their abortion stance with the statement, ‘Personally, I'm opposed to it, but I believe in separation of church and state.’ I've said that statement is absurd,” Flynn said. “It assumes abortion is a religious issue, and it's not. It's an issue of the common good, and it goes to the foundation of our society.”

Catholics need to “stop being political spectators and stand up for the moral teachings of the Church,” he said. “But until Catholics put themselves together again as a legitimate voting bloc and prove that you can be pro-life and be elected as a Democrat, nothing will change.”

Undecided Catholics

If they can do it before November, Flynn said, they can sway the election. For the first time in modern history, he said, polling indicates that undecided Catholic voters in swing states — such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania — stand to decide the presidential election.

And in spite of the party platform, the sentiment is there in the rank-and-file to change the party. A Zogby poll taken before the convention revealed that 42% of registered Democrats agree that abortion “destroys a human life and is manslaughter.”

Kristen Day, executive director of Washington-based Democrats for Life, says the party's pro-abortion platform is driven by cash.

“It all has to do with the amount of money that Planned Parenthood and NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) channel into the Democratic Party,” Day said. “There is a growing pro-life movement in the Democratic Party, but the abortion industry is paying the party to defend abortion rights.”

Flynn said Catholic Democratic voters are largely to blame, because they've made it clear they don't vote based on Catholic principles. By contrast, pro-abortion activists are motivated entirely by their views on abortion. And the vast majority of politicians, he explained, care only about winning.

“Democratic, Catholic politicians are mostly good people,” Flynn said. “But they need to get elected. If Catholics can prove to them that they can be elected by being pro-life, then they'll be pro-life. What they see now, however, is that the pro-choice people are more motivated by their stand, better financed, and they appear to have the media behind them. Given that, politicians are going to choose the political course that gets them elected.”

Education Important

Urging Catholics to vote pro-life is good, said Republican Alan Keyes, a U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois. What he doesn't hear, however, is any condemnation of Kerry by Flynn, or any advice to Catholics to vote for someone else.

Flynn refuses to denounce Kerry, no matter how much he decries the Democratic Party's abortion stance.

“No. I don't tell people how they should vote,” Flynn said. “I won't.”

Nor will Flynn say whom he's voting for.

“That's sad,” said Keyes, who campaigns almost entirely on a pro-life platform and insists that it's evil to vote for politicians who favor abortion. “If you're going to have the courage of your faith, you have to apply it in every aspect of your citizenship. Society cannot benefit from the fruits of your faith if you don't apply your faith.”

But Day said Flynn has worked fearlessly and tirelessly to educate Democrats about the need to defend the unborn. He was the keynote speaker at the Democrats for Life convention dinner.

“Ray has been such a supporter and a leader of the Democratic pro-life movement, which is growing by leaps and bounds, that I can't even begin to quantify the effect he is having,” Day said. “He is unwaveringly pro-life, he has the heartfelt respect of most Democrats, and he's out there telling them they need to defend the unborn. And they're listening.”

If Flynn won't tell pro-life Democrats to vote Republican, Day said, it's because he wants to change the Democratic Party— something he can't do by driving members away.

“Pro-life Republicans support what we're doing, but they're also afraid we'll succeed,” Day said. “Our success will result in taking from Republicans a huge number of voters who vote Republican because of the abortion issue alone. But we really are Democrats and for a lot of reasons that are important to our members. It has to do with our views on the war, on health care and on workers’ rights.”

One reason Flynn won't tell people how to vote is that he is heading a new organization in Massachusetts called Catholic Citizenship. The organization was established to carry out the Faithful Citizenship initiative, launched by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops with a 2003 statement that calls on Catholics to “participate now and in the future in the debates and choices over the values, vision and leaders that will guide our nation.”

Working with Catholic Citizenship, Flynn and other volunteers are encouraging Catholics to “become more informed and actively involved in the civic life of their community and Church,” according to a statement by Archbishop Sean O'malley of Boston.

“We register Catholics to vote, and we help them inform themselves on the issues,” Flynn said. Life issues are the most fundamental and primary issue in Catholic teaching. It is our central issue, and we make that very clear.”

Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.