COLUMBUS, Ohio -- After a day of courting "red state" voters in farm country with a visit to church and an application for an Ohio hunting license, John F. Kerry spoke to his Democratic base yesterday at traditionally black church linking his faith to the work he would do as president.

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"Well my friends -- 16 days," Kerry said, alluding to the final stretch before Election Day as he borrowed a well-worn line from the hymn "Amazing Grace."

"Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come. 'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home," he said, as some 1,500 people in the pews of Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Columbus roared in approval.

Over the last few months, Kerry has spoken regularly on Sundays at black churches like this one, trying to strike a delicate balance between expressions of his faith and campaign rhetoric. But in these waning days of the campaign, Kerry, who is Catholic, is also threading more references to his religion into campaign appearances -- most prominently before 51 million viewers in his debate with President Bush last week.

The references are deliberate -- not just to counter Republican attacks on his principles and his values, but also to address the problems he faces particularly from some Catholic archbishops who have reportedly told church members that it is a sin to vote for Kerry because he supports abortion rights and less restriction on embryonic stem-cell research.

Republicans have also tried to link the Massachusetts senator with the gay marriage issue, which clearly troubles many American voters. Kerry opposes gay marriage but does not support the constitutional amendment Bush has advocated for a ban on the marriages.

At a town hall meeting in Xenia this weekend, a questioner who said he was Catholic expressed concern about Republican dominance on religious matters.

"Why aren't these bishops coming out and saying if you vote for an immoral war it's a sin," the man said to Kerry, "How can you and the Democratic Party in general take command of this and say, 'Hey, folks there's more than one moral issue in this world and we're on the right side?' "

In answering that question, Kerry honed what is now a familiar approach on religious matters: where he reaches out to potential swing voters by saying he respects the more conservative view of his detractors, notes that he is a deeply religious Catholic, but says he is committed to maintaining divisions between church and state.

"I, like you and like millions of Americans, am guided by my faith," Kerry said. "I went to a church school when I was a kid, chapel every day, twice on Sundays, I was an altar boy as a young man. ... I wore my rosary into battle in Vietnam, got carried through that with faith."

"I think everybody's bedrock moral grounding comes partly from their faith," Kerry said. "We bring those [values] to the public sector, but in America -- with all due respect to certain bishops and others with whom I've said I disagree -- we have a Constitution that makes it very clear that affairs of church and state are separate from the governance process."

Kerry linked his faith again to work in the public sector at Mount Olivet yesterday quoting a favorite biblical passage from the Book of James that faith without works is dead.

"When I look around me -- open your eyes -- I see work to be done; I see deeds," Kerry said. "For all the talk, for all the professions of faith and how strong we are, we've got a lot more lovin' of our neighbor to do in the United States of America," Kerry said, moving seamlessly into his campaign pitch about the need to create jobs and after-school programs and his contention that the Bush administration has favored drug companies and corporations over struggling Americans.

To reach more skeptical religious voters, Kerry has also relied on Catholic priests to deflect the criticisms of their more conservative brethren. During his trip across southern Ohio on Saturday, Kerry attended a specially arranged mid-afternoon Catholic Mass at St. Mary Church in Chillicothe, where he was greeted with a supportive sermon from the Rev. Lawrence Hummer.

"There are many people who think that the destruction of Iraqi life is as direct an assault on the sacred as is the taking of unborn life," Hummer said. "Even when [Kerry] comes to the church of his youth, he finds many ready to attack him for acknowledging reality rather than playing God. Let the brother be at peace here; he is among friends."

It is unclear how successful Kerry's supporters will be in asking fervent Catholics or other pro-life supporters to vote for Kerry. But both campaigns are keenly aware of the importance of at least expressing the message about their candidates' faith.

Bush has carefully tended to his conservative religious base throughout his presidency and has a broad advantage among more religious voters and those who frequently attend church.

Four in 10 new voters describe themselves as evangelicals, according to a recent survey by New York's Pace University and Rock the Vote. And many voters encourage politicians to talk about faith.

In a 2003 survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 62 percent of voters said Bush -- who speaks of his faith more often than any recent president -- touched on faith and prayer in his public appearances "the right amount." Forty-one percent of those surveyed said political leaders talk about prayer and faith "too little" compared with 29 percent who said they speak about it the "right amount." Only 14 percent said Bush makes references to religion too much.