Canon lawyer seeks Kerry’s excommunication

A CANON lawyer seeking to have Senator John Kerry excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because of his support for abortion rights said on Monday that he had ammunition in the form of a letter issued at the request of a senior Vatican official.

The lawyer, Marc Balestrieri of Los Angeles, who heads a conservative Catholic nonprofit organisation called De Fide, also said that, based on the letter, he would now seek to have four other Catholic politicians excommunicated: Senators Edward M Kennedy of Massachusetts, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mario M Cuomo, the former governor of New York.

“Senator Kerry, and all pro-choice Catholic politicians, who publicly call themselves Catholic yet who blatantly violate canon law by continuing to profess heresy and receive Holy Communion, must publicly reject their abortion advocacy for the sake of their own souls, and the others they have scandalised,” Mr Balestrieri said in a statement. “They have been excommunicated.”