WASHINGTON — The Roman Catholic bishops' special task force on the problem of politicians who disagree with their church on issues like abortion will confer with Democratic and Republican lawmakers here this week.

Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the panel's chairman, said the meetings, to take place today or Friday, will be private and participants and particulars won't be released.

McCarrick said in an interview that his panel might have new political guidelines ready for the U.S. bishops' next meeting in June, in advance of a congressional campaign he acknowledged "will be hard fought."

Besides McCarrick, the high-powered task force includes Baltimore's Cardinal William Keeler and six bishops who head major policy committees of the U.S. hierarchy. A third cardinal, Francis George of Chicago, is a consultant on the project.

The issue of whether dissenting politicians should be barred from Holy Communion, or at least remove themselves from the sacrament, burst to the fore during the 2004 presidential race. The Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, an abortion rights advocate, was the first Catholic major party nominee for president in 44 years.

McCarrick said the bishops were discussing with college presidents another step, denying awards and speech invitations to dissenters. Some bishops want a ban on all appearances while others would only bar speeches on topics where there is disagreement with church teaching.

McCarrick recently sought advice from two former Catholic members of Congress. One result was this week's meetings with groups of anti-abortion Catholic Democrats and Republicans who were approved by their local bishops.

Last year the U.S. bishops agreed that officeholders who support abortion rights or euthanasia are "cooperating in evil" but, as McCarrick had advocated, only individual bishops would decide whether they should receive communion.

That local-option stance still vexes some Catholic conservatives. The American Life League of Stafford, Va., ran a full-page ad in The Washington Times during the U.S. hierarchy's meeting here this week insisting that all bishops refuse communion under a church law that bars those who "obstinately persist in manifestly grave sin."

McCarrick said he had not seen the ad and had no comment.

But he said the American bishops' viewpoint was ratified last month by bishops from around the world at a Vatican synod. Recommendations from the synod to Pope Benedict XVI said local bishops should decide with "fortitude and prudence" about communion for officials upholding views "in contradiction with the law of God."

American Archbishop William Levada, who succeeded Benedict as head of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, raised the issue at the synod. McCarrick's task force has compiled a booklet of readings on the issue that went to Levada's Vatican congregation for review.

McCarrick originally proposed the task force on politicians in 2003 after Vatican statements defined three moral issues that raise problems for Catholic politicians: abortion, euthanasia and legalization of same-sex unions. He said by extension, stem-cell research that destroys human embryos would be included.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of New York City, a task force member, told a news conference Wednesday during the bishops' meeting that church opposition to the death penalty was a different issue.

He said the church teaches that acts like abortion and euthanasia are "intrinsically evil" in all circumstances, while the state has the right to impose the death penalty, even though the hierarchy now believes it should be avoided in most situations.