Pulpit politicking: butt out, Father.

The 1996 election campaign was almost universally derided as a political season devoid of passion. But at least one campaign generated intense passion and along the way raised a question about the partisan role of at least some Catholic clergy. Long Island's Fourth District saw a heated battle between Democratic candidate and political newcomer, Carolyn McCarthy, and the incumbent Republican, Congressman Dan Frisa.

The Fourth District in Nassau County, just east of New York City, is an unlikely setting for any political battle. Its middle-class leafy suburbs are filled with Catholics who fled crowded, crime-ridden New York; and except for occasional outrages, the most famous being the 1993 Long Island Railroad massacre of commuters by a lone gunman, they have succeeded in finding security. The district is dominated by a Republican machine whose most famous graduate is Senator Alfonse D'Amato, and until 1996 there was barely a memory of a competitive race for the Republican House seat.

Carolyn McCarthy changed that. She was and is a registered Republican, but she was the Democratic party challenger to Congressman Frisa, who voted against a major gun-control bill and received National Rifle Association campaign funds.

McCarthy, a nurse and homemaker, became a gun-control crusader after her husband was murdered and her son critically injured in the railroad massacre. The media have portrayed her as a quiet, ordinary citizen challenging a male-dominated political machine. (She won by more than fifteen points). Both candidates vied for Catholic support, including from local clergy who sometimes reciprocated. McCarthy, who is a Catholic, was supported by a local priest who spoke glowingly of her in election-season Sunday sermons, praising her recovery from tragedy and her campaign against violence.

She drew the wrath of some Catholics after a Newsday article reported that she was not only prochoice on abortion (citing her nursing experience caring for women hospitalized after illegal abortions in pre-Roe days), but also supported President Bill Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion bill. She later backed away from that stance in a televised debate. But in the course of the campaign, she also dropped her opposition to the death penalty, saying that if she were elected she would follow her constituents' lead on the subject. Despite her backtrack on the partial-birth abortion veto, McCarthy's prochoice position generated outrage among pro-life Catholics. One priest prominent in the movement invited Frisa, a Protestant, to read the Prayers of the Faithful at Sunday Mass, and spoke enthusiastically of Frisa's anti-abortion stance.

A Catholic case could have been made for either candidate. But the strongest Catholic case should be against clerical meddling. I am not talking about a violation of the law here: as far as I know, there were no overt endorsements issued in any Catholic church building. And before the faxes from the Catholic League start churning, let me make it clear: I'm a believer in free speech, even political utterances from clergy. But the right of the clergy to speak as citizens doesn't mean that right should be exercised in a blatantly partisan way. For one thing, quasi-endorsements, often done with a wink and a nod, don't work: the photo-ops with prominent bishops taken by candidates George Bush and Robert Dole in the last two presidential elections didn't help with Catholic voters, nor did retired New Orleans Archbishop Philip Hannan's claim that it was a sin to vote Democratic in 1996. Republican strategists have learned the hard way that bishops and priests rarely deliver votes for their favored candidates.

Furthermore, when clergy spend precious moral capital on partisan politics, their moral authority to speak on other public concerns is diminished. One parishioner who attended the Mass that included Frisa saying the Prayers of the Faithful told me that, though he was supportive of the Republican, he was planning to switch his vote to protest the priest's heavy-handed tactics. I'm sure similar cases of pique could be found among those who heard pro-McCarthy sermons.

In the age of the laity, quasi-endorsements also come across as highly clericalist. Politics is the work of the laity. John Paul II's admonition early in his pontificate forbidding priests to hold elective office made that clear. Sure, priests should articulate moral principles, even those that have political impact. And I'm certain that politicians probably need more spiritual support than the average person, so close friendships with candidates and political leaders should be unobjectionable. But the partisan realm - the nuts and bolts of endorsements, political horse-trading, strategizing, and holding office - should be left to lay people. In the Long Island race, the use of the pulpit to issue quasi-endorsements was particularly troublesome. As the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago noted, bitterly divided Catholics should be able to find common ground around the eucharistic table, a sign of our unity as Catholics. Endorsements from the pulpit are a violation of that unity.

Do people come away from such liturgies with the sense that the celebrant is telling his congregation that there is only one legitimate political choice for Catholics? And if they come away with that perception, do they follow it like sheep or resent it? In either case, the church's moral authority is squandered for dubious ends.

Peter Feuerherd is assistant editor of the Long Island Catholic and national affairs writer for the National Catholic Register.