"We don't legislate at the orders of the Vatican. We legislate what is in our conscience and what we think is good for our country," said Murphy, of Bucks County. Like Kennedy, he is a Catholic and an abortion-rights supporter. Murphy spoke at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where he received a John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the late president's daughter, Caroline.
Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.), has clashed with Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, whose diocese covers the most heavily Catholic state in the country, for weeks over health-care changes and publicly financed abortion.
Last month, Kennedy ignited a sharp exchange with Tobin when he criticized the nation's Catholic bishops for threatening to oppose a massive overhaul to the health-care system unless it included tighter restrictions on abortion. Tobin asked for an apology and questioned Kennedy's faith.
Their exchange escalated when Kennedy told the Providence Journal that Tobin had instructed him not to receive Communion.
Tobin acknowledged Sunday that he wrote to Kennedy in February 2007 asking the Democratic lawmaker not to receive Communion because of his abortion-rights stance. But Tobin said he had never banned Kennedy from receiving the sacrament.
"It's been disheartening for millions of [Catholics] across the country to see one of our own be banished," Murphy said. "I'm reaching out to Patrick Kennedy, and also to my local priests and bishops to make sure they know that we agree on 99 percent of the issues."
In his 2008 book, Taking the Hill, Murphy wrote that a local priest refused to bless his marriage in 2006 during his first campaign for Congress because of his abortion-rights views.
"That hurt me deeply," he said.
Only a few U.S. bishops have said they would deny Communion to a Catholic lawmaker who supports policies that violate church teaching. A larger number have publicly asked a Catholic politician to voluntarily abstain from the sacrament.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., has repeatedly said that former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic Democrat who supports abortion rights, should stop taking Communion until she changes her stance. Sebelius is the secretary of health and human services.
Former Democratic New York Gov. Mario Cuomo wrestled with the same issue. In 1984, Cuomo, a Catholic who supported abortion rights and was a potential presidential candidate, gave a speech at the University of Notre Dame saying Catholic lawmakers should not be pressured by church leaders to work for antiabortion legislation.
Cuomo told the Associated Press on Sunday that he believes it is dangerous for the church to pressure politicians, because of the potential for unintended consequences.
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