By Keegan Gibson, Managing Editor

Democrats at the St. John Baptist de la Salle Catholic church received an unpleasant surprise when they opened up their bulletins on Sunday.

Inside? Pro-life fliers for Republican State Senate candidate Larry Medaglia (pictured below), complete with the “Paid for by Friends of Larry Medaglia” disclaimer. Medaglia is the Berks County Register of Wills and is running in the special election to replace the late State Senator Mike O’Pake.

“I like a church to stick to matters of spiritual or worldly issues, but not to give me advice on who to vote for,” wrote a blogger on the Pennsylvania Progressive of the church in Shillington, a well-to-do neighborhood in suburban Reading.

“What is more, how pro-life is it, for Larry to be elected only to approved measures that will cut state spending so that poor, pregnant women can’t get adequate health care for their unborn children…”

Medaglia’s campaign, for their part, says they had no part in the distribution of this or any flier to churches in the district.

“We are very proud to be the only pro-life candidate in this race and we created fliers to highlight this for pro-life supporters and audiences,” said Campaign Manager Greg Becker. “We supplied these fliers to pro-life activists in the community.  Apparently, an overzealous volunteer did something with the flier that we would not have authorized.”

It’s fairly common for conservative campaigns and/or supporters to target church congregations with pro-life material. Church services offer a sort of captive audience and a chance to reach out to large groups of pro-life voters. These tactics are legally and ethically ambiguous at best.

The typical pro-life playbook is to place the fliers on churchgoers’ windshields during a service, not hand them out inside. Additionally, this type of activity generally occurs during the very last weekend of a campaign so as to reduce opportunities for opponents to respond.

However, in this case, the way in which the fliering was carried out may back up Becker’s point.

That these fliers were handed out inside not only represents a likely breach of election law, but suggests a lack of experience that doesn’t match the resumes of Medaglia’s campaign staff.

Sources close to Judy Schwank, Medaglia’s Democratic opponent, say the implied criticism is unfair and that she has not taken a public position on abortion.