VATICAN CITY — With foreign policy in the spotlight and moral issues assuming a higher profile, the U.S. political campaign is drawing special Vatican attention this year.

Pope John Paul II, meanwhile, is busy preparing his own “Campaign 2004.” Starting next month, he'll begin addressing groups of U.S. bishops during a round of ad limina visits, which offer him a frequent platform for commentary on a range of topics, including war and peace, abortion and family values.

A presidential campaign, held every four years, and the U.S. ad limina visits, made by heads of dioceses every five years, have overlapped only once before under John Paul, in 1988.

“I'm not sure whether the coincidence this year is good or bad,” one senior Vatican official said in late January.

On the plus side, the official said, the Pope's words probably will have a bigger echo in the United States, especially when he speaks on the many issues that involve moral teachings and civil legislation, such as genetic manipulation, homosexual marriage and the death penalty.

But the election-year background also might crimp John Paul's style.

“He'll certainly have to speak more prudently, because he can't be seen as supporting one candidate over another,” the official said. “A great principle of the Holy See is that the Pope cannot enter into the battle of partisan politics.”

Catholic Politicians

The confluence of campaign politics and pastoral strategizing comes at a time when religion once again has appeared on the U.S. electoral radar.

For Catholics, attention has focused on Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, who before leaving his Wisconsin diocese of La Crosse told priests there to refuse Communion to local Catholic politicians not in line with Church teaching against abortion or euthanasia.

That has led some to ask, for example, whether presidential candidates who identify themselves as Catholic but support legal abortion — such as Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio — should be pressed in a similar manner.

Several Vatican officials declined on-the-record comments about Archbishop Burke's action. Privately, some voiced support and others said it raised unanswered questions about Church law and pastoral effectiveness.

But most see the more aggressive approach in the political arena as a welcome sign of the times. In a document issued a year ago, the Vatican said Catholic politicians have a “grave and clear obligation” to oppose any law that violates Church teaching on the right to life. Another document in July made a similar point about opposing homosexual marriage.

“I think the Vatican has obviously given a psychological empowerment to certain bishops to take a stand that they would have been more hesitant to take prior to those documents,” said U.S. Father Thomas Williams, a member of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome.

One reason the Vatican issued those documents is that the political reality has changed in recent decades, in some ways for the worse, said one Vatican official who asked not to be identified.

“Thirty years ago, the Church would not have seen herself entering into these areas because the assumption was that governments and political leaders would do the right thing,” the official said.

“Today, that assumption is gone — just look at the nightmare menu of genetic-manipulation proposals,” he said. “So the Church has turned to Catholic politicians and others to advance positions that are not only ‘Catholic’ but that are essential to the common good.”

Same-Sex ‘Marriage’

U.S. Father Robert Gahl, an Opus Dei priest who teaches on morality and ethics in Rome, said he thought the question of same-sex marriage could turn into the big election-year issue because, even more than abortion, it is a legislative question in the United States.

What John Paul says on that topic in his talks to U.S. bishops will have an impact, Father Gahl predicted. For one thing, he said, even when the Holy Father makes a general pronouncement people tend to think he's talking about hot-button local issues.

“I think that throughout the year, there's going to be an interweaving between the United States and the Vatican, reasserting in a more expressive way those truths that are fundamental for humanity and fundamental to the faith, and looking at their implications for politics,” he said.

The challenge, Father Gahl said, will be to make it clear that the Pope is promoting moral principles and not a particular political strategy.

Father Williams, a 41-year-old native of Michigan who teaches moral theology and Catholic social doctrine at Rome's Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, said it's good that Church leaders are pushing moral issues into the public forum.

But he said the Church has to be careful when it appears to make single issues a “litmus test” for political candidates or parties. That can perhaps be done on the clearest-cut issues that weigh gravely on the common good, such as abortion, but not others, he said.

“There's a Catholic teaching on contraception, but you're never going to want to make that a litmus test for Catholic politicians,” Father Williams said.

“I think there has to be a real distinction made between issues. It's not like the Church is going to start presenting a checklist,” he said.

Most Vatican officials follow U.S. electoral contests in the later stages, so few of them were poring over Democratic Party primary and caucus results in January. Once the winnowing process begins, though, interest picks up.

Throughout the election year, the Pope generally avoids encounters that could be given a partisan spin. Because of that sensitivity, his meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney on Jan. 27 probably would not have happened a few months down the road.

One U.S. diplomatic source laughed off any suggestion of political gain in Cheney's papal audience.

“I don't think there are any votes in the Vatican,” he said.

In case there were, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, seemed to go out of its way to make sure no political hay could be made: Its one-sentence story on the meeting was buried at the bottom of Page 5, with no photo.