Kerry's Campaign Scuppered?

Via Backcountry Conservative:

"A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church.

The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles canon lawyer who formally sued John Kerry in ecclesiastical court for heresy.

Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told EWTN's "World Over" program on Friday that he had received an unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pro-abortion stance.

That communication provides a basis, he said, to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is "personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose," incurs automatic excommunication. ..."

I have no idea how much US Catholics let the Vatican affect their politics, but considering that Catholics number around 50 million in the US (according to this), even if this caused only a small percentage of those to change their vote it could scupper Kerry's campaign.

Anyone know how big the Catholic populations are in the battleground states?