If Kathryn Lopez is excommunicated, it is of her own doing, not because Cosmo or whomever judged her to be no longer Catholic in a blog or TV soundbite. My point re: Kerry, as I hope I made clear, is that there is no reason for “Catholics” to rally around Kerry as a “Catholic,” because in his public life, he acts out of conformity with the public teaching of the Catholic Church. And a bishop acknowledging that a public figure is out of communion with Rome would be more than a few steps short of Inquisition–and actually, probably, a healthy and helpful educational opportunity.