By Ray Henry, The Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A lawmaker defended Rep. Patrick Kennedy on Monday against a bishop who has acknowledged asking the Rhode Island congressman not to receive Holy Communion because of his support for abortion rights.

"We don't legislate at the orders of the Vatican, we legislate what is in our conscience and what we think is good for our country," said Rep. Patrick Murphy, a Democrat and Catholic who supports abortion rights like Kennedy. Murphy spoke at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he received a John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the late president's daughter, Caroline Kennedy.

Patrick Kennedy is the nephew of John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic elected president. He and Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, who oversees the most heavily Catholic state in the United States, have clashed for months over health care reform and publicly financed abortion.

Last month, Kennedy ignited a sharp exchange with Tobin when he criticized U.S. Catholic bishops for threatening to oppose a massive overhaul to the health care system unless it included tighter restrictions on abortion. Tobin asked for an apology and publicly questioned Kennedy's faith.

Their exchange escalated when Kennedy told The Providence Journal in an interview published Sunday that Tobin instructed him not to receive Communion, a central focus of Roman Catholic worship. Kennedy said Tobin had also told his priests not to give him the sacrament.