VATICAN CITY - While many American Catholics oppose Sen. John Kerry because he supports abortion rights, church officials and observers here say that if the people who run the Vatican could vote, they would be as divided as Americans are - and might even tilt toward Kerry.

Officially, the Vatican never takes positions on elections, and it has maintained a public silence about an issue deeply dividing American Catholics this year: the assertion by some American bishops that voting for Kerry amounts to a sin.

But interviews with Vatican officials, many of whom did not want to be named, and experts who watch the church closely turn up a bottom line in which many Vatican officials seem to differ with hard-line American Catholics: While opposition to abortion is nonnegotiable for the church, that does not necessarily translate into uniform hope here that President Bush wins re-election. There are other issues that weigh heavily.

"At the end of the day the Vatican is a European institution," said John L. Allen Jr., an influential reporter for the National Catholic Reporter who recently wrote a column estimating that the Vatican would slightly favor Kerry. Allen noted that at least half the Vatican staff is European, "drawn from the same background as people working in foreign ministries of Germany or Italy."

"In that circle Bush is overwhelmingly an unpopular figure," he added. "They start from a great deal of skepticism about Bush."

By The Associated Press