When you win an election by the skin of your teeth, swing vote politics follows you everywhere -- even to Russia.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging President Bush to discuss Russia's treatment of its Catholics with Vladimir Putin, when he meets the Russian president later this week. The Catholics they represent are one of the nation's most important swing vote constituencies.
The Russian government "has severely restricted the religious freedom of the Catholic Church in Russia and interfered with providing pastoral and spiritual care to Russian Catholics," said Gerard F. Powers, director of the group's Office of International Justice and Peace. "These actions certainly violate international agreements guaranteeing religious freedom to which Russia is a signatory."
In recent months, the government has revoked the visas of one of the country's only four Catholic bishops, along with that of an Italian priest. Observers fear this may be the beginning of a trend -- that the government will begin imposing tighter restrictions on the foreign-born, in order to harass the Catholic Church. Because the church was banned by the Soviet Union and because its ordination process is so lengthy, the vast majority of the country's clergy have moved there from abroad.
The government has long discriminated against Protestant churches, the other Christian groups competing with the Russian Orthodox Church.
A White House official said that he did not know whether Bush will raise the issue with Putin but that he will likely meet with one of the the country's Catholic bishops, along with representatives from the Orthodox church and a synagogue