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In 2004, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops found themselves in the middle of a rancorous public debate about the church's political priorities and Communion, its most holy sacrament.
As another presidential campaign gathers steam, the bishops are preparing to publish moral guidelines for political life, as they have every four years since the 1970s, this time with lessons learned from 2004.
The 2008 version of Faithful Citizenship will be debated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore next week.
''We did not want to appear, as we enter a major political cycle, as if we're trying to tell people how to vote,'' said Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J. ''We're not taking a political role but the role of teachers.''
Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship delineates in three sections how Catholics should behave in the public square. Rather than just present a checklist of the proper Catholic stance on issues, the document takes pains to explain the church's role in politics.
It counsels the nation's 67 million Catholics and all ''people of good will'' to avoid voter guides that reduce the faith to a few ''non-negotiables,'' as well as partisan attacks and media hype, according to a draft of the document.
''The church calls for a different kind of political engagement,'' the draft reads. ''One shaped by the moral convictions of well-formed consciences and focused on the dignity of every human being, the pursuit of the common good, and the protection of the weak and vulnerable.''
The wide-ranging, 47-page guidelines do not back down from the church's denunciation of abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research as ''instrinsically evil,'' but they also emphasize the role of individual conscience in making moral choices.
''Our purpose is to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with God's truth,'' the bishops wrote.
The 2004 election, which saw a handful of Catholic bishops declare politicians who supported abortion rights - including then-presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. - unfit for Communion, was an ''uncomfortable time for a lot of bishops,'' said Catholic journalist David Gibson.
''Above all, this document is a reaction to the politicization of the Communion debate in 2004, not just in the wider society but within the bishops conference itself,'' said Gibson, author of The Rule of Benedict.
In the spring of that year, as news of ''Communion Cops'' made headlines, 58 percent of U.S. Catholics said the bishops were doing a good job leading the church. It was the lowest approval rating since the clergy sex-abuse scandal broke in 2002, according to a poll conducted by Le Moyne College and Zogby International.
On Tuesday, a number of prominent Catholics, including former Vatican ambassador Thomas Melady, met in Washington to discourage ''the public embarrassment of politicians whose public positions differ with church teachings through the refusal of the sacrament of Holy Communion or public admonition by the bishops.''
The dispute over politicians and Communion is just a footnote in this year's Faithful Citizenship document, but Myers of Newark, one of the first U.S. bishops to threaten to withhold Communion from wayward Catholic politicians, said that may change in Baltimore.
''There will be vigorous discussion on the matter,'' he said.
Although the guidelines have already been circulating among the bishops for two years, the details will be hammered out among all 280 bishops in a public forum in Baltimore, an unprecedented step for the conference.
Bishop William Skylstad, the outgoing president of the bishops conference, said the open forum allows the bishops to ''develop a strong consensus.''
Asked if a consensus from the entire conference on controversial matters like Communion would isolate the handful of bishops who publicly espouse different views, Skylstad said each bishop is free to determine what happens in his diocese.
''Each bishop can make his own judgment,'' Skylstad said. ''But I think, too, a very strong call among the bishops to be in solidarity, so there isn't confusion among the people, is useful.''
Already this year, Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, a leading conservative, has said he would prevent Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani from receiving the sacrament.
Once approved, copies of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship will be made available to every diocese and parish in the country. The 2003 version has sold 1.3 million copies, according to the USCCB.