Hillary Clinton made a number of sacrifices when she picked Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate. She gave up the chance to pacify outraged progressives who’d gone hog-wild for Bernie Sanders, with a pick like Elizabeth Warren. She passed over any number of minority candidates who would have solidified her as the candidate of (in National Review‘s words) anti-white identity politics. From Kaine’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, it’s clear that she didn’t snag a scintillating orator; observers on Twitter have been sniping that Kaine reminds them of a deadly dull uncle who drinks too much at a Christmas dinner and decides he’s the life of the party. (“Wanna see my Trump impression again? No, wait….”)

So those are the downsides. The upside, some say, is that he has a track record as a “moderate” Democrat with appeal to the vast, unprincipled herds of quasi-Catholic voters, whose Roman Catholic bona fides amount to Mass at Christmas and Easter, and Italian or Irish last names. Call them “tribal” Catholics, the functional equivalent of “cultural Jews,” except not quite so cultured.

And that’s the part that might not work out so well for Hillary. Yes, it’s true that a decade ago Tim Kaine was pro-life, and up until perhaps a few weeks ago supported Jimmy Carter’s Hyde Amendment, restricting taxpayer funding for abortion. But Kaine made it clear that political ambition means more to him than the withered stump of his conscience when he signed on to repealing it.

The blowback has already started. With each eruption of disgust by credentialed Catholics, Kaine’s value to the tribal Catholics shrinks just a little — not because those people take doctrine seriously, but because he’s shedding the cultural markers that mark “one of us” from “one of them.”

Kaine’s cash value drops each time he is seen glad-handing abortion profiteers like the ghoulish Cecile Richards, or is quoted directing the pope to throw over Church doctrine and practice dating back to Christ and the apostles — as he was in the Virginian Pilot last year, admonishing Pope Francis upon his visit to Congress:

“If women are not accorded equal place in the leadership of the Catholic Church and the other great world religions, they will always be treated as inferiors in earthly matters as well,” Kaine said in a statement. “There is nothing this Pope could do that would improve the world as much as putting the Church on a path to ordain women.”

The most damaging eruption of Catholic discontent since Kaine’s selection was surely the statement by Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin on Facebook:

Lifenews documented the bishop’s claim by consulting Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life:

Like Hillary Clinton, Sen. Tim Kaine supports the current policy of abortion on demand. Like Hillary Clinton, Sen. Kaine is so extreme on abortion he opposes even the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, legislation to protect unborn children from abortion after 20 weeks, when they are capable of feeling excruciating pain during dismemberment or other late abortion methods.

Shortly after Bishop Tobin’s statement, a learned priest based at the Dominican House of Studies at Catholic University offered Kaine a blunt warning on Twitter:

Senator @timkaine: Do us both a favor. Don’t show up in my communion line. I take Canon 915 seriously. It’d be embarrassing for you & for me

— Fr. Thomas Petri, OP (@petriop) July 24, 2016

That’s where Kaine’s value will be worn away, drip by drip, as he ceases to be a “moderate” balancing Hillary’s ticket, and begins to be seen more and more as a self-serving embarrassment. Joe Carter of the Acton Institute is already describing Kaine that way:

“I’m personally opposed to taking a position on abortion that will prevent me from being VP.” – Kaine, Biden, Lieberman, Gore, Bentsen … — Joe Carter (@joecarter) July 28, 2016

That’s the take that will be so damaging to Kaine: That he shed his principles out of raw, bloody-edged ambition. Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in America, and one of the few Church stances which left-wing Catholics are reluctant to outright abandon. (Even their beloved Dorothy Day was strongly against it.) Except, you know, when they decide to run for office in the Democratic Party. Then that conviction gets dropped like a used Kleenex. Kaine has offered no principled or defensible explanation of his 180-degree flip-flop, and apparently has none. What will he say in a debate against Gov. Pence?

Expect Kaine to do some damage control by appearing alongside the Nuns on the Bus, and doing multiple interviews with Jesuits in venues like America magazine, who will dust off their Roman collars for the occasion (as they did for Joseph Biden) to blather about Pope Francis and carbon footprints.

Is there anything Kaine won’t do in service of the uncompromising feminist demand, “Abortion on Demand Without Apology”? Will he draw the line at performing one?