Catholic Comment on Issues Isn’t Meant to Be Popular : Religion: Americans cheer when the church calls for human rights and hiss when it preaches on sex. But it’s all part of the same fabric.

Many Americans, including me, get an uneasy feeling when religious leaders involve themselves in political issues. The most recent and obvious examples are the denial of Communion to candidate (now state Sen.-elect) Lucy Killea by San Diego’s Roman Catholic Bishop Leo T. Maher because of her pro-choice stand on abortion; and Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony’s statement advising gay men not to use condoms to prevent AIDS, but rather to abstain from sexual activity.

In both cases, the advice from the pulpit did not have the desired effect. Killea, considered a long shot before Bishop Maher’s edict, catapulted into the national spotlight and won the election. Mahony’s statement, which flew in the face of worldwide health programs encouraging the use of condoms, drew widespread criticism and anger.

There may be a tendency to compare these episodes with some country preacher railing against strong drink or Jerry Falwell telling his flock to vote only for candidates who support Christian principles, but that is not the case here. Falwell and the country preacher are individuals, shooting from the hip. Maher and Mahony are following a carefully thought-out theological position that comes from the Vatican and is continually taught by the Pope.

When Pope John Paul II visited Mexico in January, 1979, it was the beginning of a pastoral, diplomatic and political initiative that was without precedent in the history of the Catholic Church. Since that first trip abroad, the Pope has covered more than 80 countries, including two visits to the United States, drawing huge crowds, intensive media coverage and warm television pictures that are transmitted worldwide. But the Pope is not running for office. He has a mission and a message for the faithful and the clergy.

His first visit to Poland, in 1979, demonstrated that the Communist government in Warsaw could not crush the religious fervor of the Polish people. On his second visit, he held a surprise meeting with Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and convinced the authorities to lift martial law. That act was a strong link in the chain of events that eventually led to the election of a democratic government in Poland.

In 1983 he visited Nicaragua and raised hell with several priests who had taken posts in the Sandinista government. In El Salvador, he condemned the right-wing death squads. In Haiti, he publicly admonished Jean-Claude Duvalier for his exploitation of that poor country. And upon his departure he instructed lay people and clergy to carry on his message.

The issues addressed by the Pope vary with the geography. In Africa, for example, it’s monogamy--should a man be allowed to have more than one wife? The Pope says no. In Central America, it’s human rights. In North America, for some strange reason, it’s all sex-oriented--birth control, abortion, sex before marriage, divorce and celibacy in the priesthood.

Most Americans would probably applaud what the Pope did in Poland, Nicaragua and Haiti. They would also approve the actions of Cardinal Jaime Sin, the archbishop of Manila, who was instrumental in the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos.

It is somewhat hypocritical, then, for Americans to feel that it is commendable for the Catholic hierarchy to try to effect social change in all those other places, but it is taboo for them to do it here.

The Vatican’s activism is understandable. The Pope, as a young man growing up in Poland, was acutely aware that during World War II, Pope Pius XII did virtually nothing to prevent the Nazi slaughter of Jews, Slavs, Poles and other “undesirables.”

Catholic priests around the world have a clear mandate to speak out on issues the church deems important. Public censure, as in the Lucy Killea affair, will not deter this activity.

Church doctrine on such volatile issues as abortion, birth control and sexual habits may be unpopular to many Americans, including American Catholics, but it is clearly correct in the minds of those who are committed either by their faith or their position to spread these teachings.