Tom Kington writes in Politico that the Catholic bishops were “conspicuously absent from the battlefield” of the 2014 election because Pope Francis is steering the Church away from political conservatism. But the article overestimates how much the bishops ever get involved in elections. The 2004 presidential race, on which Kington dwells, was a special case because it was the only presidential contest since Roe v. Wade with a Catholic candidate who favored unrestricted abortion. The headline takes the form of a question: “How Will the Pope Play in 2016?” My guess is that after that race is over, it will be possible to write an 800-page book on the election that covers it well and never mentions the pope.