GOP courting Catholics to gain critical votes

David Leege, an expert on Catholic voting and professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, said Bush has drawn some support beyond the abortion issue by 'speaking Catholic.'

The president has appealed to Catholic social-justice concerns by backing funding for AIDS victims and has shown deference to Catholic beliefs even when he disagreed with them, Leege said. For example, the president met with the Vatican's Washington ambassador to hear Pope John Paul II's objections to the war on Iraq before it started, Leege said.