Yesterday Michael Stricherz, lauded “the Baptist press” for paying closer attention to the religious identity group voting in Pennsylvania than the main stream media, but decries their failure to investigate the “why.” Without the “why” I think statistical analysis promotes indentity-group political approaches/appeals and serves to exacerbate the problem of religious divisiveness separate from issues and policies. I’m not sure that exploring the “why” is always helpful anyway. But I wonder what Stricherz would think if it turned out to be a function of the “Madonna bracelet”?

Today, a look at the dust-up over Rudy Giuliani’s acceptance of Communion at the papal mass–and Archbishop Egan’s very public denunciation. Obviously, this is an issue of much greater interest among Catholics than others, although . Should it matter to the rest of us, at least those who value religious faith and observance, that a politician publicly defies his Church’s well-known directives as to matters of observance? What are we to make of a pretty selective denunciation (as it appears other Catholic politicians who would full under the same directive) did not get a public condemnation. Perhaps this is a function of Catholic polity, because only Giuliani is within Archbishop Egan’s diocese while Rep. Pelosi and others are not.