After the Veggie sale, Part II

While brainstorming the other day, Phil Vischer thought up an idea for a wacky late-night show that could also deal with faith issues.

This show would not feature digital vegetables and Vischer playing a big, red, silly tomato named Bob. It would not be a VeggieTales show produced under the Big Idea brand he created a decade ago. It would sink or swim on its own.

This felt exhilarating and terrifying.

"That was the whole thing with VeggieTales," said Vischer. "It was wonderful, but everything we did had to end up as a digital-animation video product. We had a studio to protect and everything had to feed that franchise. ...

"What if you had an idea for a live-action movie? Too bad! How about new characters? Too bad! How about new children's books? Too bad! Maybe an old-fashioned animated movie? Too bad! What if we went back and did a puppet show? Too bad! We had to stick to Veggies."

The good news, said Vischer, is that he is now free "to chase all these creative bubbles" wherever they go. The bad news is that he is free to do so because Big Idea Productions crashed into bankruptcy last year after losing an $11 million lawsuit about a verbal contract with a distributor, only 10 years after releasing the first Veggie video called "Where is God When I'm S-Scared?"

VeggieTales started with Vischer and Mike "Larry the Cucumber" Nawrocki, two wisecracking puppeteers who exited Bible college because they were in trouble almost as often as they were in chapel. Vischer learned computer graphics, Nawrocki wrote silly songs and a dream was born.

At its peak, Big Idea was a 210-person animation studio in the Chicago suburb of Lombard. The reorganized Big Idea, Inc., has downsized and moved to Franklin, Tenn., just outside Nashville. The new owner is Classic Media, which controls Lassie, Rocky & Bullwinkle, the Lone Ranger and other wholesome products.

Nawrocki and a circle of others made the move. Vischer did not, but agreed to keep providing the voice of Bob the Tomato and legions of other characters. He will write one of three Veggie scripts each year and consult on others. "The Lord of the Beans" is just around the corner.

"I'm trying to tell the stories that God is putting into my head," said Vischer, pausing. "And I'm still trying to learn how to let go. But it's good to let go. It was killing me, trying to run a studio and be creative at the same time."

The late Bob Briner would have agreed, 100 percent. Throughout the 1990s, the president of ProServ Television used "Roaring Lambs" and his other books to urge believers to stop cranking out predictable products to sell to the converted.

Briner was a big VeggieTales fan. Yet, weeks before dying of cancer, he offered sobering media insights that would soon become highly relevant to the Big Idea story. Briner said that when he started paying attention to the Christian marketplace, he feared that the artists didn't have what it takes to make competitive, mainstream products. This was not the case.

"We have people who can tell stories, write songs and be funny," he said, in April of 1999. "We have lots of talented people. I've decided that this isn't the problem. Our biggest problem is that we don't have enough people who know how to handle the money so that the talented people can do what they need to do."

Vischer found that out. He said he started out telling stories and ended up "chasing the Walt thing" as he tried to build a corporate brand that could compete with the Walt Disney Company and the rest of the industrial entertainment complex.

In the end, it was hard to tell funny stories. The pressure was too great.

"I wanted to do as much good as I possible could as fast as I could," he said. "I mistakenly believed that the bigger we got, the more opportunities we would have to do good. What I learned was that just the opposite was true.

After the Veggie sale, Part I

NASHVILLE -- VeggieTales fans know that strange things happen when the big green digital cucumber launches into one of his infamous "Silly Songs with Larry."

The new "School House Polka" salutes words that sound alike, with the chorus: "Homophones, homophones, where the crews come cruising down the plane. Homophones, homophones, I need my kneaded biscuits plain!" The twist is that Larry keels over on his back and delivers an accordion solo that fuses great moments in rock music history.

Some nervous Christian consumers let Mike "Larry the Cucumber" Nawrocki know that (a) Jimi Hendrix was not a Christian musician, (b) "Smoke on the Water" was not a Christian song and (c) "School of Rock" was not a Christian movie.

"There are always people who are going to say, 'We don't think rock 'n' roll like that is appropriate for our kids,' " he said. "You just have to be funny anyway, even if that bugs them."

Nawrocki pondered this artistic dilemma, then continued: "The whole key to humor is to be able to criticize the authorities and make fun of the powers that be. But that's hard for some Christians to do. ... That may even mean criticizing the church, in particular. But how are we supposed to do humor if we can't do that?"

It isn't easy to write computer-animated comedies that are safe enough for Sunday school, yet hip enough for media-soaked youngsters and their parents. Yet this high-wire act has made VeggieTales one of the most recognized brands in family entertainment.

These days, even loyal customers are scrutinizing new products from Big Idea, Inc., the reorganized company that replaced Big Idea Productions. Phil "Bob the Tomato" Vischer created the original company in 1993, but it slid into bankruptcy in 2003 after losing an $11 million federal lawsuit about a verbal contract with a video distributor.

The new owner is Classic Media, which owns Rocky & Bullwinkle, Lassie, the Lone Ranger and a flock of family franchises. Nawrocki, musician Kurt Heinecke and a small team of other Big Idea veterans moved from greater Chicago to join a cluster of entertainment companies in Franklin, just outside Nashville. Vischer will continue to do the voices of his many digital characters, while writing one Veggie script a year and consulting on others.

The key is that the VeggieTales brand is still healthy, said Terry Pefanis, the new chief operating officer. During the bankruptcy proceedings, bidders put Big Idea under a microscope and found that it was selling 5 million home video products a year, with about $50 million a year in total product sales.

No one doubted the future of the Veggies -- if they remained hip and wholesome. But Pefanis said executives from one or two entertainment giants still thought that Big Idea needed to stop quoting the Bible so much.

"They kept saying that VeggieTales needed less God so that we could make it big on mainstream television," said Pefanis. "But the problem is that if we stop talking about God, what use are we? What are we going to tell stories about? ... On top of that, if we start leaving out the Bible, we're going to lose our core audience and we're dead."

As entertainment entrepreneurs, the new Big Idea leaders know they have to do what they have done in the past -- dominate the Christian market, while reaching out to suburban superstores that hail from Arkansas. While the Christian retail industry claimed $4.2 billion in sales in 2003, the Big Idea team keeps talking about two bigger ideas in the marketplace. Forty percent or more of all Americans say they go to church and 80 percent or more say they believe in God.

Thus, the new "Sumo of the Opera" ends with a bite of St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews, but gets to its lesson on perseverance via Gilbert and Sullivan, professional wrestling, ESPN and "Rocky."

"You can't just haul off and hit people in the nose," said Nawrocki. "If you do, you've started selling a sermon and that doesn't work.

Beyond the Brighton bombing

Twenty years ago the Irish Republican Army bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton in an attempt to kill Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her entire cabinet during a Tory Party conference.

Jo Berry, Harvey Thomas and Patrick Magee will mark the Oct. 12 anniversary with a reflective evening at the historic St. James' Church near Piccadilly Circus in London. Their goal is to talk about the lessons they have learned from one of the most shocking terrorist acts in the bloody history of the Irish and the English.

Berry is the daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, one of five people who died.

Thomas was Thatcher's press secretary and barely survived.

Magee was the IRA terrorist who planted the 100-pound bomb behind a panel in the bathroom of Room 629.

"The fact that the three of us will stand side by side as friends is a story in and of itself. It shows that true reconciliation is possible," said Thomas, during lectures at Palm Beach Atlantic University. "Reconciliation isn't easy. But how do we move forward if we cannot forgive our enemies?"

The 65-year-old Thomas is a broadcaster who is as well known for a 15-year stint with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association as for his years as Thatcher's media specialist. Thus, he works in two different worlds. Thomas is as comfortable dissecting Bible passages with other Christians as he is fine-tuning public-relation campaigns for politicos and executives in Saudi Arabia and other tense locales. His passport has been stamped in 120 nations.

Reconciliation in the post-September 11th world, he said, must involve secular people as well as religious believers. It means convincing hostile armies of true believers to treat each other with respect, if not tolerance. What is the alternative?

"What happens if nothing is done is almost certainly global warfare," said Thomas. "We have to ask ourselves: What are we willing to do to try to head that off?"

Berry has asked the same question. Two days after the bombing she fled to the St. James sanctuary and sent up a non-believer's prayer to find some way to seek peace and deal with her own grief. This pain led her to seek a meeting with Magee when he was released from prison after 14 years, as part of the Good Friday peace agreements in Northern Ireland. They met privately and then agreed to have further talks about forgiveness, this time filmed by BBC cameras.

The public forum with Thomas is the next stage in this bridge-building process. Berry hopes it draws everyone from political activists to therapists, secular diplomats to believers from many different sanctuaries.

"I dream of a world in which we have choices to resolve conflict other than violence," she said, via email. "Talking with Patrick Magee is a way of learning from the past, which may give insight for creating a different future. I am learning about the effects of blame and looking at how we make choices not to blame."

Thomas was made a similar pilgrimage.

For millions of people in Great Britain and around the world, one of the most unforgettable moments after the bombing was watching -- live on television -- as rescue workers pulled the 6-foot-4, 280-pound Thomas out of tons of concrete rubble. His own memories of those moments center on hours of frantic prayers for his family.

Now Thomas has new memories. His dialogue with Magee began with letters while the bomber was in prison. A few years later, Magee ended up sitting in the Thomas family kitchen, sharing baked beans, stories and regrets. They talked about decades of oppression, the bitter choices of civil war and the dehumanizing effects of violence.

One of Thomas' daughters asked Magee: "You do realize that if you had succeeded in killing daddy, I wouldn't be here?"

Magee wept and so did Thomas and his family.

Reconciliation is a process, said Thomas, but it begins with a decision to forgive. This is a personal choice and it's impossible for one person to tell another when or how to take this step. Seeking personal reconciliation is not the same as seeking justice.

"I have no doubt that I needed to forgive Patrick Magee," he said. "It's what God wanted me to do. So I did it."

Call it church-state espionage

Call it church-state espionage.

Unitarians and other activists on the religious left have been slipping into evangelical pews to endure altar calls, praise songs and sermons against gay marriage. The Kansas-based Mainstream Coalition has a simple reason for doing this. If preachers openly endorse President Bush, its agents can report these crimes to the IRS.

Reacting to these watchdogs on the left, the Religious Freedom Action Coalition promptly launched Big Brother Church Watch -- www.ratoutachurch.org -- to infiltrate churches that might back Sen. John Kerry. Big Brother agents will, for starters, target Unitarian Universalists, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church.

The good news is that this strategy may increase church attendance, quipped the Rev. James L. Evans of the First Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala.

"Reports from both groups seem to indicate that the monitors will be going out two by two," said Evans, in a satirical essay for the University of Chicago's Martin Marty Center. "Monitoring pairs could easily become monitoring teams. We could witness the rise of monitoring communities.

Snakes, Bush and the Greeks

The woman on the telephone was speaking English, but it was hard to understand what she was saying because of her strong Greek accent.

She was a journalist in Greece, but I couldn't catch the name of her newspaper. She told me her name, but I didn't get that, either. Lest readers judge me too harshly, it helps to know that I attend an Eastern Orthodox parish with Lebanese priest who speaks Arabic, Greek, French and English. I am used to interesting accents.

The reporter's first question told me why she was calling -- Google. Before long, I learned that she was interested in American politics as well as religion.

"You are an expert on Christians who worship with snakes, yes?"

Not really, I said. I have read books on the subject and I used to teach in the mountains of East Tennessee, but I never met snake handlers. In modern times, even some of the Baptists there drive Volvos, wear Birkenstocks and listen to National Public Radio like everybody else. OK, I didn't say exactly that, but I tried to explain to her my limited contact with this edgy flock on the far fringe of American Protestantism.

"Can we interview you about this?", she asked. "You have written about it?"

This told me that she had found -- via Google -- my 1996 column on "Snakes, Miracles and Biblical Authority." It was based on lectures by Baptist historian Bill Leonard of Wake Forest University and described the theological lessons he learned from his friendship with the late Arnold Saylor, an illiterate country preacher who took rattlesnakes with him into the pulpit.

In that column, I noted: "Millions of Americans say the Bible contains no errors of any kind. 'Amen,' say the snake handlers. Others complain that too many people view the Bible through the lens of safe, middle-class conformity and miss its radical message. Snake handlers agree.

"Millions of Americans say that miracles happen, especially when believers have been 'anointed' by God's Holy Spirit. 'Preach on,' say snake handlers. Polls show that millions of spiritual seekers yearn for ecstatic, world-spinning experiences of divine revelation. 'Been there, done that,' say snake handlers."

Snake handlers, in other words, believe they have biblical reasons for engaging in their risky rites. They quote the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus tells his disciples: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

The Greek reporter, it turned out, was interested in more than snake handlers. The newspaper wanted to probe American religion, in general. To be specific, it planned to visit Ohio, a crucial state in the White House race. She wanted to know: Did I know any snake handlers in Ohio?

Say what? I tried to figure out the logic behind this question, which seemed to be linked to European stereotypes of this country. The thinking might go something like this: Snake handlers are evangelical Protestants. President Bush is an evangelical Protestant. Therefore, Bush is the candidate of snake handlers. Then again, Bush is a United Methodist. I doubt there are many evangelical United Methodist snake handlers in Ohio. Was this an overlooked voting block?

I urged her to get in touch with Leonard, the actual expert on the subject. That was the least the newspaper could do.

"Can we go ahead and interview you? We do not have a lot of time," she said.

A few days later, Leonard had not received any calls from Greece. He was still fascinated by the beliefs and customs of snake handlers and, come to think of it, he received a recent call from a Chinese newspaper asking questions about this topic. He declined to speculate on the logic of the Greek reporter's Ohio questions.

Truth is, snake handlers "are the bain of liberals and conservatives," he said.

"I can't say why there is this interest," said Leonard. "I don't think it's about Bush, but about strange religion in America -- Pentecostals, healing, evangelicals, snake handlers. ... They are always used as caricatures for something."

Freud, Lewis & God on PBS

Dr. Armand Nicholi of Harvard Medical School was caught off guard as he read evaluations of his first seminar on the life and philosophy of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

"Several of the students said the same thing," he said, recalling that semester 35 years ago. They thought the class "was good, but that it was totally unbalanced. They said it was one sustained attack on the spiritual world."

Nicholi had a problem. He decided that the students were right, but he knew it would be hard to find another writer with the stature to stand opposite Freud -- perhaps the 20th century's most influential intellectual. Then he remembered a small book he discovered by chance during his internship in a New York City hospital, a time when he wrestled with the agonizing questions of cancer patients and their loved ones.

The book was "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis, the Oxford don and Christian apologist. Nicholi revamped his seminar, focusing it on the life stories and writings of Freud and Lewis. Rather than back into discussions of spiritual questions, the psychiatrist placed them at the heart of the syllabus. Decades later, Nicholi's classic course became "The Question of God," a book that has inspired a pair of PBS and Walden Media documentaries for television and home video.

The format blends academics and drama. Nicholi presents Freud as a spokesman for the "secular worldview" that denies the existence of any truth or reality outside the material world. Lewis is the champion of a "spiritual worldview" which accepts the reality of God. Seven articulate women and men representing a variety of viewpoints join in the seminar discussions.

Freud and Lewis are represented by their own words, the commentary of experts and actors who dramatize a few episodes from their lives, often seen in counterpoint with archival photographs and film footage.

Nicholi said the goal is the same as in the seminar -- to let these giants grapple with the big questions of life. Is there a God? What is happiness? Why do people suffer? Is death the end? What is the source for morality? It helps that Lewis, before his conversion, was an articulate atheist and familiar with Freud's work.

"I was astonished at how Freud would raise a question and then Lewis would attempt to answer it," said Nicholi. "When you read their work it is almost as if they are standing side by side at podiums, debating one another. It was uncanny."

At the center of the project is a word that is criticized by some scholars -- "worldview." Nicholi said it's impossible to deny that Lewis and Freud had different approaches to life. Each saw the world through filters created by culture, heritage, philosophy, education, experiences, faith and prejudices.

Their actions and writings make no sense when separated from these secular and sacred worldviews, said Nicholi. By studying their worldviews, students can test and refine their own. Many educators seem afraid to even discuss this process, he said. They find it especially hard to discuss questions of faith and morality.

"You can study an opposing worldview and learn everything that you can about it or you can try to ignore it," said Nicholi. "Many religious believers are afraid to take Freud's work seriously. They reject him out of hand. On the other side are the critics of Lewis who say that his traditional Christian beliefs were fitting for the uneducated masses, but not for the classroom. You hear them say, 'I do not consider this is an intelligent point of view and, since I am intelligent, I don't have to pay attention to it.' "

This is education?

Through the years, Nicholi has defended his seminar from critics on both sides. He still finds it hard to believe that people who claim to cherish academic freedom and diversity can question the value of reading and contrasting the works of these two intellectual heavyweights.

"We are supposed to be as critical, as objective and as dispassionate as we can possibly be," said Nicholi. "But if we cannot allow this kind of dialogue between two worldviews to take place in an academic setting, then we are in trouble. Discussing these kinds of questions is what academic life is supposed to be about."

Rites & prayers before the storm

Anyone who has lived in a hurricane zone knows the rites that fill the hours before a storm.

You wrestle with metal shutters. You fill bathtubs and rows of plastic bottles with water and make extra ice. You check radios, flashlights and battery expiration dates.

Floridians in Frances evacuation zones faced the sobering act of preparing a box or two of irreplaceable papers, pictures and memories. I saved stacks of class outlines and left textbooks. I saved icons from Greece and left diplomas from Texas. I saved my guitar and an oil painting of the great lion Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia. Some things are easier to replace than others.

Then you are supposed to pray.

Even our civic officials and television anchors hinted at this. But for what, precisely, should we pray? This is a puzzle for learned theologians, as well as parents guiding children in bedtime prayers next to a hurricane lamp.

Should believers pull a Pat Robertson and try to steer the storm toward some other target more worthy of God's wrath? Is it realistic to pray that every storm will veer into the open Atlantic? Many simply pray for God's will to be done -- period.

Deep questions loom overhead: Does God "cause," "control" or merely "allow" hurricanes? Are they part of a fallen creation touched by sin, yet events that God can use? All of the above?

"I don't think you can hold that God never sends the storm -- the witness of scripture seems to forbid that," said Father Joseph Wilson of St. Luke's Catholic Church in Whitestone, N.Y., one of several experts I reached by email during the storm.

"The Fall had consequences and scripture hints at them. These consequences affected man's relationship with God, his relationship with woman and with nature. ... In classical Christian theology it is not necessarily the active will of God, which sends the storm, although it may be. But the permissive will of God is involved, since He is permitting it."

Roman Catholics have long wrestled with these issues in liturgies, he said. The altar missal includes a rich variety of "Masses for Various Needs," including prayers about the weather and harvests. The "Procession for Averting Tempest" begins with church bells, a litany of the saints and the following:

"Almighty and ever living God, spare us in our anxiety and take pity on us in our abasement, so that after the lightning in the skies and the force of the storm have calmed, even the very threat of tempest may be an occasion for us to offer You praise. Lord Jesus, Who uttered a word of command to the raging tempest of wind and sea and there came a great calm: hear the prayers of Your family."

Finally, the priest makes the sign of the cross and sprinkles the surroundings with holy water. At that point, quipped Wilson, "I guess everyone assumes the crash position."

Specific Protestant rites are harder to come by. But in one Evangelical Lutheran Church in America liturgy, the people pray "Lord, have mercy" after prayers such as: "In the face of mighty winds, thunderous sounds, strong rains, and surging waves, let us pray. ... In the face of complete uncertainty, as well as concern for our loved ones, here or elsewhere, let us pray. ... In the face of our own vulnerable mortality, let us pray to the Lord."

Eastern Orthodox tradition includes similar prayers, noted Father Patrick Henry Reardon of Chicago, the author of numerous meditations on the Book of Psalms. Hurricane Frances drew his immediate attention because his son's family, with five grandchildren, was in its path.

The key is that it is always appropriate to "pray simply for deliverance, for yourself and for others," he said. "During storms ... I am particularly drawn toward Psalms 18 and 29, because both of them describe the experience of a storm, with all the wind, thunder (the 'Voice of the Lord'), lightning and so forth."

These timeless and mysterious prayers range from stark fear to exuberant praise. In them, storms are common -- a normal challenge of life in biblical lands.

"It is legitimate to ask if a hurricane counts as a storm," said Reardon. "I don't know. However, I am disposed to think they will suffice."

Cheeseburgers in Jerusalem

It was the night before Melanie Preston's immigration flight to Israel and the 28-year-old daughter of a Jewish mother and an Irish Catholic father knew exactly what she wanted to eat.

"I want a cheeseburger, right now," she said, scanning a trendy South Florida menu. "You can get cheeseburgers in Israel, but you can't get a really good one. You know?"

This wasn't just a wisecrack about the kosher tradition of separating meat and dairy products. This was the kind of symbolic issue that Preston faced when she signed up for one of the free tours that have taken 70,000 young Jews to Israel during the past five years.

The global Birthright Israel program is open to young people between the ages of 18 and 26 who have never been on an organized tour of Israel. It doesn't matter if they have one Jewish parent or two. It doesn't matter if they have no idea why some Jews eat cheeseburgers and some do not.

"There are cheeseburgers in Israel. You can get them at McDonald's and some places serve them just like regular hamburgers," said Marlene Post, chair of Birthright Israel in North America. "You make your choices. If she's planning on being religious, then she will never see another cheeseburger in her life. If she's going to be secular she will have all the options she would have anywhere else."

This tension between Judaism the faith and Judaism the culture has been part of Israel from the start. Thus, one of the key philanthropists behind www.BirthrightIsrael.org is Wall Street legend Michael Steinhardt -- an avowed atheist. Nevertheless, he joined the Israeli government and a coalition of donors, foundations and civic groups to fund this experiment.

The young people can select tours that emphasize education, art, recreation, religion or nothing in particular during their 10-day visits. They float in the Dead Sea and hike the Golan Heights, hang out with young Israeli soldiers and meet Holocaust survivors, visit security checkpoints and tour in buses tracked by on-board global positioning systems.

It isn't hard to spot the agenda, said Roman Smolkin, a 24-year-old computer professional in Aventura. Insiders stress the need for young people to "bond" with the state of Israel. Others talk about helping them establish a sense of "Jewish identity," whether religious or secular. Clearly, the constant late-night socializing is meant to facilitate friendships, some hooking up and even Jewish marriages.

"I think they're just trying to get people like us to be us, to be ourselves. They want us to act like young Jews," he said, during a dinner with Preston and several other tour veterans in South Florida. "But the people funding this must be thinking in terms of a very long-term investment for Israel and for Judaism. They must be thinking that they give us this trip now and, 30 years down the road we'll be different people."

For Harrison Heller, the impact was immediate. When he returned to Boca Raton he promptly signed up with Students for Israel and began speaking out politically. He still considers himself non-religious, although he now wears a prominent Star of David necklace.

"The whole religious thing is impossible to avoid," he said. "One of the very first application forms that we had to complete came right out and asked that question. It said, 'Are you Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or just a Jew?' You can't get more direct than that."

Preston wrestled with the faith issue as she prepared for "aliyah" -- the Hebrew word that means "to ascend," or move to Israel. She said she was raised "sort-of Reform" and "did the Christmas thing every year, but with no church services." Before Birthright Israel, she thought a "kibbutz" was a kind of boat.

Long after the tour, she had a tearful epiphany when she heard a Scottish folk singer attack Israel during a music festival in Montreal.

"What I've discovered," she said, "is that it's almost impossible to get involved in the life and politics of Israel without getting underneath that into the religious questions. ... That's what Israel is all about. It's great. It's scary. I love it. It's frustrating. I'm moving there.

"What can I say? I know that I can't escape the Israel question now, because it's my question."

Whither the Catholic Catholic voters?

Former Boston mayor Raymond Flynn doesn't see a lot of Republicans at the 9 o'clock Sunday Mass at St. Vincent's Catholic Church.

This is a South Boston parish, the kind of place where Irish parishioners cherish photos of old-timers -- like Flynn's dockworker dad -- marching on feast days with Cardinal Richard Cushing and a young John F. Kennedy. These are hardcore, working-class, union-card Catholics.

"These people have never voted Republican in their lives," said Flynn, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican in the Clinton years. "But now they feel like homeless Democrats in their own party. They're pro-life and pro-family and pro-marriage and pro-justice and pro-poor and they have no idea who to vote for anymore. They're homeless."

Nevertheless, Flynn said it's too easy to tie this scene to the "pew gap" that has made headlines in this election year. It's true that surveys say the safest way to predict how voters will vote is to chart their worship habits. Voters who worship more than once a week go Republican -- 2-1 or more. A Time poll said the "not religious" crowd backs Sen. John Kerry over President Bush, 69 percent to 22 percent.

Some strategists see this as "good Catholics" who back Bush versus "bad Catholics" who back Kerry. They want to divide America's 64 million Catholic voters into two political flocks.

"There's no way you can do that," said Flynn. "I know there are politically conservative Catholics out there and they're Republicans because that's what they believe. I also know there are liberal Catholics and they're still comfortable voting Democrat. But what about all of us who are just Catholic Catholics? ...

"In the media, the fact that we're pro-life makes us conservative Republicans. Right?"

Nevertheless, journalists are not the only insiders who think that way. Leaders of the Democrats for Life organization are reeling over platform language adopted quietly at the recent Democratic National Convention.

The 2000 platform said Democrats stand "behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade." However, it also said the "Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party."

The 2004 platform replaces this conscience clause with a statement that Democrats "stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine" abortion rights.

Democrats for Life director Kristen Day asked: "So what are they saying, that because we want to protect the rights of the unborn our own party says we're automatically Republicans?