Catholic judges and Catholic politicians

This op-ed by Michael McGough, "Catholic judges and a higher authority," is confused.  After noting that some Catholics have argued that some abortion-rights-supporting politicians should not receive communion, McGough asks, in effect, what about the judges?  "But for those bishops who do take a hard line against pro-choice legislators, there is no excuse in theology or logic for holding back from sanctioning Catholic judges — such as Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — who vote to affirm or apply Roe vs. Wade."

This is silly, of course.  True, McGough concedes that:

[N]ot targeting judges might be explained by the differences between legislators and adjudicators.  Judges (in theory anyway) are ruling on the basis of a disinterested reading of the law, not their personal beliefs. But pro-choice members of Congress can similarly argue that their pro-choice votes are a reflection not of their own views but of the desires of their constituents.  Whether the public official's defense is "the polls made me do it" or "precedent made me do it," isn't the moral issue the same?

What's particularly frustrating is that the asserted equivalence between (a) refusing to overrule Roe v. Wade and, say, (b) voting to fund late-term abortions is superficially appealing enough so that many readers will follow McGough into the error of thinking that McGough's point is clever or powerful.

On the other hand, there is something to the last line quoted above:  "[i]sn't the moral issue the same?"  I guess it is, in that both politicians and judges have a moral obligation to avoid scandal and to avoid culpable cooperation with evil.  It seems pretty clear to me that a judge who (mistakenly) concludes that the Constitution permits legislatures to permit abortion is in a very different position, cooperation-with-evil wise, than a legislator who votes to subsidize abortion.

Rick