By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Lots of comments coming in on Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy's public tiff with the Roman Catholic bishop of Providence, with most siding with the bishop. One pattern I noticed in the comment thread: Those defending Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin's request that Kennedy forgo Communion because of his support for abortion rights (Kennedy said the bishop "instructed" him) are mostly active Catholics. Some of them urge Kennedy to go find another church.

Those sticking up for Kennedy, meanwhile, tend to be disaffected Catholics or antagonists of the church or of religion—folks who have found another church or who just left organized religion.

Does that mean that most Catholics side with Tobin, while Kennedy's backers are all Catholic adversaries? I wouldn't go that far. It's the outspoken voices on both sides that fit that pattern.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

After this month's battle between conservatives and the GOP establishment in New York's 23rd Congressional District, the big staging ground for Republican Party infighting has moved to Florida, where former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio is battling Gov. Charlie Crist in the party's U.S. Senate primary.

On the one hand, the two campaigns insist that hot-button social issues are taking a back seat to economic ones. On the other hand, Rubio's campaign has just released a long "fact-checking" memo questioning Crist's conservatism. The first six bullet points challenge the governor's claim that he's "pro-life."

Fact is, religious conservatives are playing a major role in conservative challenges to establishment Republican candidates across the country. It's the subject of my most recent God & Country column in U.S. News Weekly.

Here's the top:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

It's really rare that a dispute between an elected official and the Roman Catholic Church plays out as publicly as the one happening now between Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin. After Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, revealed that Tobin asked him to forgo Holy Communion because of his pro-abortion rights stance—Kennedy said the bishop ordered him to skip Communion, though the bishop says it was a "request"—Tobin struck back with a very forceful statement yesterday, which I've pasted below.

Reading it, I have to wonder: Will this kind of nasty public back and forth between the church and elected officials become more commonplace, as a bigger handful of bishops speak out against Catholic politicians who support abortion rights? And if so, will a more publicly confrontational style on culture war issues strengthen the church's influence in politics and government or weaken it?

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

(AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)

The Most Rev. Thomas Tobin, Roman Catholic bishop of Providence, greets parishioners yesterday in Riverside, R.I. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat, says Tobin ordered him to stop taking Communion because of Kennedy's support for abortion rights, but the bishop says it was meant as a request.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy's bishop asked him to forgo communion because of his support for abortion rights. The vast majority of American Roman Catholic bishops have declined to make such requests, but a growing number are making headlines for doing so.

What do you think of the practice?

There are a lot of in-between positions here, so explain your vote in comments.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

A survey out today finds that more Americans attribute a biblical verse about justice and poverty to Barack Obama than to the Bible.

The survey found that 13 percent of Americans identified the Bible as the source of this verse: "You must defend those who are helpless and have no hope. Be fair and give justice to the poor and homeless."

A greater share, 16 percent, cited President Obama as the author of the verse.

Nine percent cited the Dalai Lama, and 8 percent named Martin Luther King Jr. as the source of the verse. Four percent cited Oprah Winfrey , while 3 percent named U2 singer Bono. A third of respondents said they didn't know the author.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive for the American Bible Society, in conjunction with the release of the group's new Poverty and Justice Bible.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Catholic, says his local Roman Catholic bishop instructed him to stop taking communion three years ago and ordered diocesan priests to deny him the Eucharist because of Kennedy's support for abortion rights. But Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin says that his message to Kennedy was merely a request and that he never ordered priests to enforce it.

The controversy has played out in recent days on the pages of the Providence Journal, which notes that Kennedy is the last public official from America's most prominent Catholic family. In an interview with the paper on Friday, Kennedy said that Tobin "instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion."

In this morning's Journal, Tobin said Kennedy's claim that he ordered priests to deny Kennedy Communion was "absolutely inaccurate." He also challenged Kennedy's description of the bishop's 2007 correspondence to Kennedy about foregoing Communion: "If he took it as an instruction, so be it, but it was really a request."