Divine intervention

A Bristol church scales the wall of separation between church and state and campaigns against state senator Karen Nygaard

by Ana Cabrera

Karen Nygaard

James Capoverdi paces around his office, sunlight pouring through jewel-toned windows. At 32, he looks like any '90s businessman, crisp black hair styled with a hint of sheen, gunmetal gray eyeglass frames highlighting dark eyes. He exudes energy, punctuates his sentences with hand gestures, and speaks in a firm, strong voice.

But Capoverdi does not wear Armani to work. Rather, he sports the black power suit of his life's calling: the floor-length robe of a Roman Catholic priest.

Less than three blocks away, Karen Nygaard sits in a faded green easy chair, stacks of papers nearby, a recording of flutes playing in the background. Her face breaks into a smile as she helps a customer choose from the myriad books for sale in her waterfront store in Bristol's historic district.

Nygaard is also clad in black, a tailored pantsuit; around her neck, a silver cross made by the Navajo Indians. It is the same outfit she will wear to the State House for that afternoon's session of the Rhode Island Senate, where Nygaard is a freshman legislator representing the 46th District.

Father Capoverdi and Karen Nygaard share two passions: politics and religion. He is a former young Democrat who, by his own admission, "loved Mario Cuomo" during his college years. She is a lifelong Democrat who campaigned for John and Bobby Kennedy.

Fresh from ordination last June, Capoverdi is on his first assignment as an assistant pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, a red-brick neighborhood jewel built by the sweat and hard work of Italian immigrants. Nygaard owns the Be Here Now Bookstore, where Bibles, the works of William Shakespeare, and New Age books sit pell-mell on shelves near an assortment of incense and a photograph of Pope John II hugging a Buddhist monk.

The two both admit that their life's work was a result of much soul-searching and a desire to serve people. And were it not for one issue, their paths might not have crossed at all.

That issue is abortion, and both have made opposing choices: he against, she in favor. As a result, the two, despite some strong similarities, have become opponents in the political arena, where religious and ethical debates are often resolved.

Indeed, while the wall separating church and state is receiving much attention these days with Congress debating the merits of school vouchers and similar initiatives, the reality is that church and state have never been completely separate -- and probably never will be. In order to fulfill their mandate to help those in need, Catholics say they must take an active role in determining social agendas, which often means lobbying their local representatives on issues ranging from abortion to welfare reform.

Still, there are times when this line is more blatantly crossed than others, and the story of the priest and legislator from Bristol may be one of them.

Capoverdi wants Nygaard, an ardent pro-choice feminist, out of office. And he says that a Respect Life group he formed at his church has made her a "target" with this goal in mind. "You have the freedom to take your positions seriously. You hold them close to your heart and come out and support . . . or oppose them," says Capoverdi. "I have a right to do that, too, as an American."

Perhaps so, but Capoverdi's political involvement seems to go a bit deeper, as members of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel -- and even one of its employees -- may be campaigning behind the scenes to elect a pro-life candidate to take Nygaard's seat in November. If that's true, they are doing so in apparent violation of Democratic District Committee regulations and, even worse, church guidelines.

For Nygaard, the controversy surrounding her office climaxed in April, when she accompanied Congressman Patrick Kennedy on a trip to Ireland and Father Capoverdi spoke out against it. "As a priest in this neighborhood," he says, "I don't think it was very wise for Patrick Kennedy to allow her to go considering her comments regarding Roman Catholics."

The comments Capoverdi refers to stem from an address Nygaard made on the Senate floor nearly a year ago as part of a debate over a bill outlawing an abortion procedure known as partial-birth.

The pro-life camp has used this procedure, which they have described in particularly graphic terms, to gain a foothold among local and national politicians in their quest to roll back Roe v. Wade. And people like Kennedy -- and even the Rhode Island General Assembly -- have responded to the pressure and thrown their support behind the cause. As a result, Nygaard was one of the few state legislators willing to publicly oppose the partial-birth abortion bill last year, which the General Assembly eventually passed.

In an attempt to dispel the pro-life notion that the procedure calls for a fetus to be partially delivered before it can be destroyed, Nygaard told fellow senators in July 1997 that "no fetuses are being aborted in this country that are capable of surviving on their own, outside the womb. Don't believe those who are telling you otherwise. They would have done well with the Nazis and their big lie regarding Jews."

It was this last line, of course, that created such a stir. Indeed, not long after the Senate hearing, an article appeared in the Providence Visitor, Rhode Island's Roman Catholic newspaper, written by editor Michael Brown and headlined NYGAARD CALLS CATHOLICS NAZIS.

Brown says that he has seen a videotape of Nygaard's Senate speech and that although her comments did not specifically include the word "Catholic," he received numerous calls from readers who'd heard it that way. "Perhaps it's a matter of interpretation," says Brown, "but I can tell you that I was not the only crazy son of a gun who got that interpretation."

For her part, Nygaard denies that she has any anti-Catholic sentiments. She was born and raised a Roman Catholic, she says, and as an adult, she entered into a crisis of faith on certain issues within her religion.

"It took me a while to find another church," Nygaard says of that period in her life. Then she discovered the First Congregational Church in Bristol. "When I first met the minister of that church, he had a statue of Buddha on his desk," she recalls, "and I had found a home."

Now active in that community, Nygaard points out that she was not the only one who had a change of heart in her beliefs. "Father Capoverdi was pro-choice when he was younger."

"That's true," says the young priest. "I was so caught up in being a Democrat . . . it blinded me to the truth." But the politician-turned-pastor eventually saw the light, he says. And so he dialed the number to Kennedy's office to complain about Nygaard's accompanying the congressman to Ireland.

For the record, Kennedy stated that he had invited all Rhode Island legislators (and assorted others) to travel with him to Ireland. "Those accompanying me on the trip are not official representatives of Rhode Island," he said. Kennedy spokesman Larry Berman adds that the itinerary mainly consisted of visits to Kennedy family historical sites and that all those who went on the trip paid the nearly $1500 in costs themselves.

Nygaard says she went not for political reasons but because she is "an unabashed fan of the Kennedys." She says she had every right to take that journey, and she was "dumfounded" by Capoverdi's reaction to it.

"I have a friend who lives in Ireland near Belfast. I wanted to see her," says Nygaard. "And I wanted to go with Patrick Kennedy because they were going to go to the Kennedy homestead [and] to meet with Jean Kennedy Smith. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

"I cannot figure out why Father Capoverdi questioned my trip based only on the Catholic connection, since Ireland also has a strong Protestant population," Nygaard continues. She wonders whether something else was behind the priest's opposition, something having to do with the political agenda of Capoverdi and his secretary.

Capoverdi's assistant at Mount Carmel, Kathleen Melvin, is chair of the 46th Democratic District Committee, the group that endorsed former 46th District senator Helen Mathieu in her primary bid for that seat in 1996.

Nygaard, the unendorsed Democratic candidate, beat Mathieu, who is pro-life, in the 1996 primary by a reported 2-to-1 margin and went on to win the final election. "The people did vote for me," says Nygaard. "I made it clear while I was running for office what my position was, how I felt about abortion, and that the government does not belong in the bedroom or the doctor's office."

The senator says she won that election fair and square, but she knows this was not the end of it. Indeed, while tradition dictates that a district committee disband if their endorsed candidate loses a primary, the 46th Democratic District Committee did not do so after 1996 -- and actually exists on record today as it did then. What's more, Nygaard says she has reason to believe that Capoverdi, Melvin, and others have quietly begun campaigning for Mathieu, who would not confirm or deny her intentions for the Phoenix.

"I've a few weeks left to make that decision," says Mathieu, noting that the deadline for filing papers is Wednesday, June 24.

But while Mathieu isn't talking just yet, the same group of people who endorsed her bid in 1996 remain on paper as members of the 46th Democratic District Committee. Roger Mathieu, Helen's husband, is among the seven members, while Melvin is still listed as chair, according to records filed at the Secretary of State's office. In fact, her signature as such appears on a document filed as recently as January 28, 1997, even though Melvin had disaffiliated herself from the Democratic Party by then, according to a statement she'd signed and filed at the Portsmouth Town Hall on November 11, 1996.

Melvin says, "When I signed the document in January of 1997, I was under the impression that I would be replaced by an active registered Democrat in time for the election this year."

But Raymond Martins, vice chair of the 46th Democratic District Committee, says he had no idea that Melvin was not a registered Democrat when she signed the form. "It has just recently come to my attention that she has disaffiliated from the party," he says, adding that he has asked for a formal document verifying this.

When apprised of the situation, Jeff Keller, executive director of the Democratic State Committee, quoted a state election law which stipulates that if a candidate for a district committee disaffiliates, a vacancy is created that must be filled within 45 days. Judging from Melvin's actions, Keller wonders whether the 46th Democratic District Committee, as it exists on the books now, is still viable.

"This happens all the time," says Mathieu. "Somebody moves out of the district, somebody dies. At that point, the other members of the committee are free to appoint somebody else."

As it stands now, Nygaard says she is running again, as is Warren Town Council member Walter Felag.

Felag, who is also pro-life, denies knowing anything about Mathieu's plans and adds that "no one has asked me to run, if that is what you are getting at."

Meanwhile, Mathieu, a resident of Portsmouth, has begun attending Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, according to Bernice Parella, a parishioner and the mother of state Senator Mary Parella (R-Bristol).

"They like Mount Carmel Church because it is a conservative parish," says Bernice Parella. As for this year's Senate race in her district, Parella says of Mathieu, "We need more pro-lifers in there. We lost a good one when we lost Helen."

For his part, Capoverdi says he knows nothing about whether Mathieu will run for her old position. About Melvin, he asks, "What business is that if Kathy is my secretary?"

But Nygaard is concerned about Capoverdi's strong political leanings against her and whether they constitute some violation of the issue of separation of church and state.

Monsignor George Frappier, vicar for social ministries in the Catholic Diocese of Providence and Capoverdi's supervisor, says the Church does not endorse or disendorse any political party. Still, it can educate Catholics on political and moral issues.

"According to the separation of church and state in the Constitution, it is appropriate for people to speak on issues, and it is possible to address the public fact of how a candidate may stand on an issue," says Frappier. "But you have to draw the line according to the rules between endorsing or not endorsing a candidate. There is a fine line."

Capoverdi wonders why Nygaard assumes that just because he is a priest, he cannot be political. "If the labor union wants to support somebody because it is going to benefit them and their organization, it's not an issue," he says.

Across town, Nygaard wonders something similar -- why Capoverdi assumes that just because she is a politician, she cannot have her own philosophies. "The Buddha said the most important thing a person could do is to practice kindness, compassion, and generosity," she says. "I try to do that every day. I only hope Father Capoverdi is doing the same for me."

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