The month-long communal clashes in Kandhamal in Orissa that left scores of people dead and many thousands displaced, and the attacks on churches in Mangalore last year have politically galvanised the Catholic community like never before. In April, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, a religious body, issued "Ten Commandments," a list of dos and don'ts urging Catholics to get themselves registered, help others get themselves on to the voters list, and blow the whistle on bribery and booth capture. But it did not specify how they should vote, except to suggest that they should shun those who are communal, casteist, criminal or corrupt.

But lay leaders of the community have been more specific, though not as specific as the Muslim Mutthida Mahaj, which, ahead of polling in two phases in Karnataka last month, had told the electorate to "vote for the Congress in 23 constituencies and in the remaining 5 seats to vote for the JD(S)." The efforts of the church have paid off. Fr Dominic Emmanuel, spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Delhi, says the "turnout in Mangalore proper was higher than in other parts of Karnataka." According to reports there was 74 percent voting in Dakshina Kannda district against an average of 58 percent for the rest of the state.

Community leaders of the Archdiocese of Delhi have issued an advisory ahead of polling in the city on May 7 that asks Catholics to choose party over candidate. The archdiocese does not pack much electoral clout. It has just 3.5 lakh members, of whom 70,000 are domestic workers from Orissa and Jharkhand, most of them without the vote. But it has a disproportionate influence on the Church in India because it engages with the government and NGOs in social policy and action. The advisory says that good candidates matter, but their party affiliations matter more in a parliamentary democracy. While all sectarian parties are divisive, those that champion the cause of Dalits and backward castes are socially empowering. But sectarianism of the communal kind, whether Akali, Muslim League or BJP, is more dangerous than the criminality of individual candidates. "Because to prevent the disintegration of the nation, secularism is paramount. Criminals, if elected, can be sent to jail; their election rescinded, some other person can replace them," says John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council and former President, Catholic Union.

The advisory does not mention any party by name, but there can certainly be no doubt that it is not rooting for the BJP. The Catholic community in Delhi cannot forget that in 1998, BJP Excise Minister Rajender Gupta had proposed that churches be denotified as places of worship (as wine is used during Mass) so that a liquor license could be issued to the Karol Bagh Club next door.