The Last Best Threat

How to strike fear in the hearts of the Catholic politicians?

How to block a change in Ireland's ban on abortion?

The Church hierarchy has reached back into the dustiest pages of the playbook to resurrect their best threat.

Vote in favor of the new abortion legislation currently being proposed, and you'll be...yes, it's EXCOMMUNICATION raising its ugly head.

The shame of it. You walk up to the Communion rail and the priest denies you, in front of the entire congregation. Right, that's if you went to Mass on Sunday which most people don't. Even if you did, who'd be there to witness your humiliation beyond a few old ladies who are half deaf anyway?

The Catholic Church is gearing up to fight proposed changes that would allow abortion in certain instances, in a country that has the strictest anti-abortion laws around.

The legislation is so tightly written that a woman would have a difficult time terminating a pregnancy. In large part, the new law is intended to avoid another avoidable maternal death, but the Church fears that some obstetrician might, just might, make a mistake and declare a pregnancy threatening to the mother's life. Or worse, some Protestant or atheist doctor might go ahead with a termination just because the woman asked for it and then make up a diagnosis to suit the legal requirements.

There will be preaching from the pulpit against the law, but there are few voters in the pews to hear the words.

All those words are being filtered through a very recent event that makes a mockery of the litany about "the sanctity of human life." After the death of Savita Halappanavar, the voters are well aware of what is at stake and how distant from reality the Catholic Church remains.

The priests can talk all they like about life as a precious gift to be preserved, but it's obvious that they don't respect the mother's life. It's been obvious for decades, the evidence resting in the stones of the Magdalene laundries that dot the island.

They have nothing left but their last, best threat. Somehow, excommunication doesn't sound as frightening as being turned out of office by an angry electorate.