The political fallout from Patrick Kennedy's fight with Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin is yet to be gauged by polls, but one can't assume that the Rhode Island Democrat will suffer as a result. People I've talked to detect a rise in sympathy for the late Ted Kennedy's son — including those long troubled by Patrick's tortured history with drugs and mental illness, plus his career-long reliance on the Kennedy name and connections.

So far, most of the many letters that have arrived from all over the country to Kennedy's home-state paper, The Providence Journal, about the Tobin-Kennedy faceoff have denounced the bishop, Journal editorial-page editor Robert Whitcomb told me. But the issue is very volatile and this could quickly go into reverse as letter-writing campaigns proliferate.

The heated exchanges started in September, when the bishop sent public letters to members of Rhode Island's congressional delegation urging them to reject a health-care overhaul if it provides funding for abortion. (The Journal provides a useful timeline, parts of which I relay here. ) Kennedy blasted back, questioning the “pro-life” credentials of church leaders who would oppose universal health coverage.

Early this month, in a letter to the Rhode Island Catholic, Tobin implored Kennedy to repent, and called his position “unacceptable to the church and scandalous to many of our members.” On Friday, Kennedy told The Journal that the bishop had told him not to receive Communion and ordered diocesan priests to deny him the sacrament. Tobin responded that he had advised, not told, Kennedy to refrain from Communion in a 2007 letter and had never instructed priests on the matter.

Many observers wonder whether Tobin, who appeared yesterday on MSNBC's “Hardball,” had opportunistically attacked Kennedy, now that his father is no longer around to protect him.  Ted Kennedy's position on abortion was indistinguishable from his son's, yet the church gave the powerful Massachusetts senator a full Catholic funeral. Ted also received Communion at Cardinal Sean O'Malley's installation as archbishop six years ago.

Nor has the Church publicly rebuked the three other members of Rhode Island's congressional delegation. Democratic Sen. Jack Reed is a pro-choice. Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin, though against abortion, supports embryonic stem-cell research, which the Church opposes. Both are Roman Catholics. Rhode Island's other U.S. senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, is staunchly pro-choice, but he is an Episcopalian, probably a good thing to be in this fracas.

Although Rhode Island is the most Catholic state in the nation, it remains firmly in the pro-choice camp. In 1986, a church-backed state referendum that would have banned all abortions in Rhode Island if Roe v. Wade were overturned lost by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent. A state poll done four years ago found public opinion on abortion virtually unchanged, with 63 percent of Rhode Islanders identifying themselves as pro-choice. Rhode Island ranks 11^th out of 50 states in support of legal abortion.

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