Given the Catholic Church's strongly hirearchal structure, I would imagine that the order will come down soon enough for the priest to moderate his position.

Such is the nature of fear. That priest is living in fear and cannot envision a God that is loving and forgiving. Sad.

Catholicism is the true evil. They have twisted and perverted the teachings of Christ for almost 2 millennium due to their thirst for control and power.

They're just following long-standing precedent. Medieval popes used to place entire countries under interdict (no sacraments of any kind) if they had disputes with the king. At least Benedict isn't threatening the US with that because Obama doesn't oppose abortion. Yet.

Why do this? It has an air of Inquisition about it to me; he is saying people should do penance, which means he is going to find out who voted which way. And if that sounds impossibly crass, the devout should go back and read his memo.

As a former Catholic who got a bit of a frisson out of receiving Communion after I actually HAD an abortion (and then voted for Obama! Scary!) I am about ready to go down to South Carolina myself and do it again. I think what this dude doesn't realize is that the few devout Catholics who are left are practicing their own private religion based on their own relationship with their God, and he has no power over that.

GOD, it's great to be an atheist. Of course, I will never be president, but I didn't want to anyway. Phew!

I don't remember similar injunctions when W waged an immoral preemptive war.

The Framers fucked up when they decided that churches were to be exempt from taxation, which violates the spirit of disestablishment. It has led to corrupt system where clergy's political statements are selectively prosecuted.

I have never heard of a priest saying you should go to confession before taking communion. When I was young we went to confession on Sat (though only every three months in my family). I never had a priest ask how many communions I took since the earliest sin. I think this priest is inventing dogma.

I wonder what the penalty is for GOP candidates who pander to the Catholic Church on the abortion issue and then do nothing while in office with legislative and executive majority power. Apparently the book of James does not apply.....faith without works seems to be just fine and dandy.......

Rev. Jay Scott Newman meet the United States Tax Code.

How is this not interfering with the secular government, he called out Obama by name. I don't give a damn what the church does until it starts threatening people because of their vote.

I suspect these tactics are going to lead people to stop visiting this clown. I would really like the justice department to go after some of these clowns and make an example.

One might also note that some Catholic Bishops in 2004 did the same thing in regard to John Kerry. It is odd that they would take such a position on a pro-choice politician, while at the same time absolutely ignoring the Biblical injunctions against those who start wars, as Bush did in Iraq.

So if you vote for Obama but never have an abortion you're bad, but if you vote for McCain and support the endless killing of innocent civillians you're good.

The Catholic church is an organized crime family. They routinely protect pedophiles, they support a policy that causes overpopulation and therefore supports the death of the planet, and they don't even believe the stuff they tell their own parishoners. They've been the largest corrupt organization on earth for centuries, and now they want to tell us how to live?

Ptui.

By his logic one would have to deny communion to any parishoner who supported McCain because McCain is pro-death penalty which is also condembed by the church. As is the Iraq war which McCain wants to continue.

A priest can not cherry pick which part of the churches message one enforces. This type of clear hypocrisy is an insult to the church and its teachings.

And the Catholic church wonders why it is hemoraging membership.

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman distributed a follow-up letter to parishoners stating that anyone who had voted for Bush/Cheney in 2000 and in 2004 were prohibited from taking Holy Communion before doing "super-double" penance for their votes for backing an adminstration who advocated torture and who invaded a country under false pretenses which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

The priest chooses to live in a country in which abortion is legal. He should perhaps confess that sin and move elsewhere to avoid charges of hypocrisy.

The Catholic Church can have whatever position it wants. I think, given freedom of speech, endorsing McCain should be their right. The religion belongs to the church, and if people don't like the church's actions they can leave.

The restriction on tax-exempt entities not making endorsements is idiotic and should be removed. Lift the gag, let the churches state their positions and people will get to decide for themselves what action to take in the voting booth.

Yet presumably voting for a candidate who has long supported an unjust and unnecessary war in which countless lives have been lost and atrocities committed when a plausible alternative exists poses no such theological problems?

Has the Catholic Church discussed any sort of similar actions against politicians who supported the Iraq War?

The Catholic Church seems far more concerned about enforcing its policies where the church aligns with the Right than it does about enforcing policies where the church aligns with the Left.

Abuse of power.

I have bootlegged communion hosts for sale, guaranteed to contain as much grace as the authorized hosts. Price? What are you willing to pay for eternal salvation? Contact if you're interested in opening a distributorship in Greenville.

I'm a Catholic. I don't have any problem with denying communion to POLITICIANS who are pro-choice, especially of the variety who earn themselves 100% ratings from NARAL. They are the ones making the pointed choice to be pro-choice, with no restriction at all. It's a scandal -- how can the Church give witness to the world about its teachings about the sacredness of life when there are prominent Catholics actively cooperating with the culture of death?

That said, it's a whole other thing for voters. Our voting choices are bundled goods. And what has bothered me particularly about the on-going tendency of some Catholics to focus on the abortion issue only is that it ignores how utterly odious the Republican party has become. This is a party that relies on division, hatred and fear to maintain power -- or it has increasingly done so in the last few years. Moreover, they haven't actually done much to shift the culture towards life. On the contrary, I think the Republicans alienate a lot of people, and I think those same people get alienated from the pro-life movement as a results. In any case, the Church has always said that one can vote for a pro-choice politician provided that (a) you are voting for them despite their stance on abortion, and not because of it; and (b) there are grave reasons on the other side. For me torture, unjust wars, an assault on truth and reason, and a willingness to stir up the dark matter of the body politic for political advantage are grave reasons. So I voted for Obama.

Finally, as a plea to Democrats: please at least consider moderating on abortion. Catholics may have gone for Obama -- but there were still a bunch of Catholic votes that went the other way. I know these people. They hate the Republicans. But Obama seemed so very extreme on abortion, they just couldn't justify crossing the line. Some stayed home. Others voted for McCain. You don't have to be pro-life to get these people back. You just have to find a position that acknowledges pro-life concerns in some material way. If you want to insure they never come back: push for FOCA, i.e. insist on the whole loaf and make a mockery of Obama's rhetoric about a UNITED States of America.

During the centuries that the Church was dominant over all aspects of life in Western countries and the populace was kept in abject ignorance, the period was called the Dark Ages for good reason.

If this becomes the official position of the Catholic Church, it will do them more harm than good. There are five (conservative) Catholics on the Supreme Court who would have a clear conflict of interest in any cases involving reproductive rights, and who would have to recuse themselves from hearing such cases.

Has the Catholic Church discussed any sort of similar actions against politicians who supported the Iraq War?

There is, in this case, no 'Catholic Church' as such. There are individual parish priests. There is the local Ordinary (responsible bishop). There is the national-level conference of Bishops. There's the Congregation for Sacred Doctrine, in Rome. And there's the Pope himself.

And then there's the only infallible source of what the Church thinks, the consensus omnium fidelium, the consensus of all the faithful -- the people in the pews. All, or any of the former, cannot compel the allegiance of the latter, in any meaningful way.

A majority of the Catholic vote isn't the same as the consensus omnium fidelium, but is suggestive of where it may lie, at least in this country, at this time.

This kind of crass political stunt only makes the Baby Jebus cry...

The Catholic church has a long and unfortunate history of getting involved in politics. Apprantly this guy either did get, doesn't remember, or didn't have a history of the Catholic church where they would have gone over this material.

Saint Thomas Aquinas - "the presence of injustice should provoke a righteous anger, which if absent constitutes a sinful insensibility"

The Pope declared the United States war against Iraq to be immoral. Following this priest's logic, every Catholic who supported Bush's invasion should be denied communion.

Catholics need to figure out for themselves how to deal with this priest and the moral dilema he presents. As a non-Catholic, I can just adopt the attitude that he can go f*ck himself.

and they wonder why people are abandoning the church in droves.

morons........

Shouldn't this church lose its tax-exempt status?
It's clearly become a political organization.

How can the Catholic Church (or at least this specific priest) keep a tax exempt status when they are not only effectively endorsing political candidates, but saying the other candidate ("that one" if you will) is actually evil. I don't understand how the priest can effectively say Obama is evil but he is our president so let's go along with him...
This kind of talk can be very dangerous...

Racer X

A pretty bigoted response for an "enlightened" progressive.

The Catholic Church, in its most prominent representative, the pope, did come out against the Iraq war, addressed criticism to Bush himself about it, but does not set U. S. policy in that regard, any more than in other areas.

The Catholic Church has taken an official stand against the death penalty and against euthanasia, or the right to choode death, whichever you prefer.It is consistent in its support of life in all of these as well as in its stand against abortion which it sees as the premature ending of a life.

However, the bishops in the United States sent a letter to parishes reminding those about to vote that the Church has also taken strong stands on behalf of social justice, cautioned against voting solely on one issue, and urged Catholics to vote using an informed conscience.

This priest is therefore speaking as an individual and not for the Catholic Church.

Perhaps some here should suspend their own bigotry and get some facts first.

Finally, as a plea to Democrats: please at least consider moderating on abortion.

You first.

When asked back in the 80s why liberalism was losing popularity despite holding numerous popular positions, Patrick Moynihan explained, "Keep excommunicating people and pretty soon you're surrounded by Protestants."

Go, conservatives!

"The restriction on tax-exempt entities not making endorsements is idiotic and should be removed. Lift the gag, let the churches state their positions and people will get to decide for themselves what action to take in the voting booth."

If "tax-exempt entities" were allowed to actively engage in the political process why, exactly, are they tax exempt? Staying out of politics is one of the core requirements of tax-exempt status. They don't get to use their position to influence policy and, in return, we don't take their money.

You either lift the restriction or remove the muzzle. You don't get to do both. Because you know, there's a huge catholic diocese in my city and we're having tax income troubles... sounds like an easy fix when the gilded bigots start spouting off.

Given that a majority of Catholic voters backed Obama on Election Day, one wonders why a church leader would take such an extreme position.

Catholics don't listen to their priests much. They just tolerate them.
.

The priest is absolutely NOT speaking as a private individual. He's denying communion - a duty that can only be described as part of his official church role.

Given that a majority of Catholic voters backed Obama on Election Day, one wonders why a church leader would take such an extreme position.

Because alienation, divisiveness and extremism are the new black.

Here's my question for His Worhsip: are taking Communion and tithing indicative of support for pedophiles?

You know, speaking as a (pro choice) French Canadian Catholic, I've always been a bit confused with the stridency that American Catholicism often takes.

What's the deal with all that? Is it a case of keepin' up with the Joneses (the fundies)??

This priest is therefore speaking as an individual and not for the Catholic Church.

And I'm sure he made that abundantly clear to his parishioners when he spoke.

Oh, hey, while you're here - I've got a fantastic investment opportunity for you. It's a bridge in a major city, a national landmark.
And for a paltry sum, it can be yours. The price is so low, given the value, that I'll need cash, up front.

I take it this puts the entire Catholic Church's tax exemption status in the US at peril, no?

This nonsense is just another example of the many reasons why I left the Catholic Church to join the Episcopal Church. Some people refer to we Episcopalians as Catholic-lite. I call us Catholic-plus.

You're the one who's bought the bridge. You seriously think that one parish priest speaks for the entire Catholic Church.

McCain's campaign could arguably be called "racist," the other evil mentioned.

Quite literally, you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't.

To this priest's credit, all you had to do was make penance. Does that include pledging never to vote for a candidate fanning the flames of racism again? Can you make such a pledge?

Is voting itself "dirty"?

Do none of these people see trouble in this dismantling of the wall between church and state that their leaders refuse to admit exists?

How does this get around the prohibition of a church backing a candidate? If you warn them in advance that their eternal souls are endangered by voting for the Muslim guy, is it STILL okay?

If the Muslim guy is pro-life is it still okay to say your soul is endangered if you support him?

What about a Mormon?

A pro-life Jew?

A pro-life atheist in a mixed marriage?

This slope is coated in 12 inches of Crisco and WD-40. This way madness lies.

"This priest is therefore speaking as an individual and not for the Catholic Church.

Perhaps some here should suspend their own bigotry and get some facts first".

Priests don't ever speak only as an individual in matters of The Church, they never have. Don't treat us like idiots because it might surprise you how many of us used to be Catholic.

The restriction on tax-exempt entities not making endorsements is idiotic and should be removed. -Rock

I'm going to go ahead and disagree. Jesus, I might add also diagreed, rendering that which is Ceasar's unto Ceasar, and all.

Go ahead, and get involved in politics, but just make sure to let me know where to address the tax forms.

Finally, as a plea to Democrats: please at least consider moderating on abortion. -Maggie

Got some news for you. Democrats *are* the moderates on this issue, as well with most others. Safe, legal, and rare. The moderate position is reduction through education.

Please tell me how on earth Obama is "extreme" on abortion?

Fuck the Catholic church! I'm so sick of our juvenile attachment to religion in this country.

You know, speaking as a (pro choice) French Canadian Catholic, I've always been a bit confused with the stridency that American Catholicism often takes.

What's the deal with all that? Is it a case of keepin' up with the Joneses (the fundies)??

Posted by: neilt

Could be a case of trying to keep up with the Bob Joneses.

Greenville, SC is the home of Bob Jones University. I believe the first two or three Bob Joneses held the view that the Pope is the antichrist. Greenville is chock-full of fundamentalists. I wouldn't think there would be a whole lot of Catholics living there.

The USCCB did not give Catholics mere "wiggle room" in their document On Faithful Citizenship. See what directly follows the statement Steve quoted:

"A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes
a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s
intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal
cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s
opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other
important moral issues involving human life and dignity."

We are being instructed not to be knee-jerk voters who treat abortion as the only issue. That's a lot more than "wiggle room". Abortion is a moral issue that is supposed to carry a great deal of weight for Catholics, perhaps more weight than any other issue. But it does not in any way carry ALL the weight.

I don't think that priest read the bishops' statement. Or if he did, he decided to cherry pick.

Many Catholics voted for Obama, I'm certain, because the alternative was in no way "plausible".

Given that a majority of Catholic voters backed Obama on Election Day...

Well, someone needs to tell PJ O'Rourke:

"Few practicing Catholics vote Democratic anymore except in Massachusetts where they put something in the communion wafers."

Maybe he has an unusual definition of "practicing"?

Priests are human after all... and some value their own perceived power over their duty to their parishoners and to society.

When there are only two political parties (two that matter), one can find an advocacy of "intrinsically evil policy" on either side... policies that appear to tolerate abortion, racism, poverty, war... all apparently antithetical to Christ's command to love one's neighbor as one's self.

Further, most of these candidates and their policies don't actually advocate any of these actions, but only prohibit or limit specific legislation against them... and so probably fail to meet the standard of actual sins.

Finally, the communion is a covenant bond between the receiver and God, not the Catholic Church. And so the Church's claim to a right of refusal seems misguided, even arrogant.

Consequently, the priests and bishops who advocate for one particular candidate or even one political party appear to be both legally and morally wrong... and perhaps should concern themselves with their own souls.

Last I checked the Middle East was Muslim and England was still Protestant. The Catholic church has been going downhill in political power for a millineum.

Given that a majority of Catholic voters backed Obama on Election Day, one wonders why a church leader would take such an extreme position.

Um, that's not how the Catholic Church works. It doesn't take positions based on their popularity among its flock.

It's up to the flock to decide what to do about that.

The last acceptable prejudice: religious bigotry is alive and well in the U. S. See comments above.

Hey "impartial",

Please refrain from issuing statements like the one above (about religious bigotry being acceptable)...it just makes us look like those dunderheads who complain about how tough it is being a white male...and those guys are effing insufferable!

thanks

"COMMUNION IS NOT A POLITICAL WEAPON"

Of course it is. It has been used as exactly that for at least a thousand years, and probably more.

The last acceptable prejudice: religious bigotry is alive and well in the U. S.

Nonsense. Racism, sexism and homophobia also remain quite popular. Did you sleep through the election?

The Catholic Church has taken an official stand against the death penalty and against euthanasia, or the right to choode death, whichever you prefer.It is consistent in its support of life in all of these as well as in its stand against abortion which it sees as the premature ending of a life.

But many of the conservative Catholic bishops and priests say that neither the Death Penalty or euthanasia rise to the level of evil that abortion is (according to them).

This priest is therefore speaking as an individual and not for the Catholic Church.

Sorry, if this priest hasn't been corrected by his bishop, then he is speaking for the church. I've been lucky enough to have two liberal Catholic pastors. When they spoke about politics, it was always outside the pulpit and they made it clear it was their own personal opinion. They never urged Republican voters to avoid communion.

Perhaps some here should suspend their own bigotry and get some facts first.

It is a fact that the Catholic hierarchy is not only increasingly projecting a conservative political agenda, it is also undermining the reforms of Vatican II. Pope Benedict spoke in favor of a "smaller" church, which was his way of saying "Let's get rid of the liberals."

Suspend your own bigotry and open your eyes.

A priest doesn't get to define "intrinsic evil".

... punishing loyal Catholic congregants based on their votes, rather than their beliefs and conduct.

Voting is conduct.

Maybe those parishoners hsould refrain from tithing...
better yet, pass on that letter to the IRS.

Voting is conduct.

Posted by: Cervantes on November 14, 2008 at 1:01 PM |

so is pedophilia and child abuse- which we have seen gets swept under the gilded rug by the RCC.

No one is "pro-abortion." The question is whether abortion should be legal or not for those who choose it. Those who feel that it is immoral should certainly refrain from it in their personal lives, perhaps even discourage it in others.

But passing a law to enforce your personal morality - that's a whole 'nother ball game. If all of Catholic morality needs to be sanctioned by law, then we should have no legal divorce, a ban on all contraceptives, certainly no death penalty, and pehaps a compulsory church attendance law.

The rap against JFK in 1960 was that his actions as President would be dictated by the Church. The Church seems to be doing its best these days to turn that stereotype into a reality.

Pro-choice /= pro-abortion. The priest is full of shit. I'm sort of amazed that anyone can look at how the RCC handled the pedophilia ring and still remain faithful. They have not made proper penance for their own moral failings, IMO.

And he's wrong on theological grounds, as well. A Catholic voter can look at the policies of the so-called pro-life candidate and make a great, sensible argument that those policies would increase the number of abortions.

Well, really, the whole church is just nutso on the subject. They want to increase pregnancies (their anti-contraception stance), and pregnancy (unplanned, unintended, unwanted) is the leading cause of abortion. Their own stance contributes to this supposedly intrinsic evil that they are opposed to.

This is the sort of ridiculous nonsense that drove me out of the church.

wait a sec...American Catholics tithe?!?!

(or do you mean the $5 you put in the collection plate every week?)

Back to the crux of the issue: it's pretty obvious that this priest didn't really read what his bishop said, so in that regard he is not acting as spokesman for "the Church" (a problematic concept at best), but for himself.

That being said, he's refusing a Sacrament - which is really the only rationale for the Church to exist in the first place (remember, it's the Sacraments that gain you entrance into Heaven...not listening to priests, a little fact that the clergy rreally wishes you'd forget ;), so in that regard he's REALLY over-stepping his boundaries and making a terrible statement which cannot help but reflect poorly on clergy at large.

Basically this guy needs to chill the fuck out already.

I suspect these preists are political operatives working in conjunction with local, state and national Republican operatives. This needs to be investigated and exposed. These are not real Catholics in my opinion. This isn't the Catholic church I go to. It's real, but ludicrous.

I'm a former Catholic who left because of the intrinsic authoritarianism (a form of evil!) and later became an atheist. It seems like this priest is bucking the authority over him--perhaps he needs to leave the church...

It's amazing to me that the Catholics are concern about abortion and yet allowed priest to destroy children lives through rape. Raping children for years and probably still is. The church hid it for years with no punishment to the priest. I listen to all the lives these priest have destroyed. To his day I do not believe in the Catholic Church for that reason. When I see one of them in those long robes I think of how many children have they raped. It really upsets me when I hear them speak out about anything. To me the worst thing you can do is rape a child and speak of God in the same breath. Those Catholic Bishops knew those children were being raped and yet did nothing. I guess gave his OK for those priest to rape those children.

It seems to me that about half the Catholics I know are an inch away from deserting Rome as it is. Two thirds of the Catholics I know voted for Obama. ALL of the Catholic couples I know have practiced birth control, and the only reason some of them stopped is because menopause, with hungry jaws, ensnared them. I hope this becomes standard practice in every parish; the number of practicing Catholics will go down substantially.

a plea to Democrats: please at least consider moderating on abortion

Kinda hard to do that when it's really not our business to require women to provide society with babies. I know it makes lots of people feel better to furrow their brows and heave sighs of regret over all of the future geniuses not birthed, lament the selfishness of women who may not (at a given time) feel that it's prudent to donate their bodies to the gloriousness of maternal feeling, and so on, but it's still not our business. We, as a society, don't have the standing to demand that of fellow citizens, because our collective interest is really for a) babies that are likely to be born and need our support, and b) the health implications of prenatal care & infant survival for women who do want babies.

Seriously, I'm pretty tired of being told that pro-choicers really need to be willing to bash women just a bit more-- make them behave better, dammit, or at least be more ashamed-- in the name of cultural cohesion. Maybe we should tell all kinds of marginalized groups to more gracefully accept limitations and stereotyping in order to make those in more comfortable positions feel better.

FWIW, Shortstop has it right, the Church's perceived job is to uphold God's law as best it can. Popularity and public sentiment sometimes do drive decisions of the ordinary, but they are not supposed to.

For better or worse, the Catholic Church believe, dogmatically, in the inalienable rights of the human person. The most fundemental of these is the right to life (CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI, #38, quoting the Pastoral Constitution of the Church). The right cannot be abridged, because it comes from God. And the right exists in every stage of development and every condition.

This is a very, very broad teaching, and probably impossible for a human person to accept in its entirety. Most of us would cringe at the idea of bludgening a new born child to death. Likewise, most of us would cringe at the idea of beating a woman's stomach during labor to kill a child, but as we move back in embryonic development, it does, for many of us, become difficult to see life equal to our own. Similiarly, most people would be horrified at leaving quadraplegic vets to die in the elements, we realize that such people deserve support care and compassion. But as we move closer and closer to end of life the issue becomes blurry. Blurrier still when we factor in our own ideas of a persons worth. Pulling the plug on mom is hard for most of us, Hitler in a Coma? Probably easier...

But the Church's position is that we are each a unique creation of a God who can, and does, love us infinitely. When you factor infinity into an equation, other factors become irrelevant. 99*infinity is neither larger or smaller than 100*infinity, so the comparisons we make between each other, however big they seem to us, are insignificant in the larger context. This is actually a recurring Gospel theme. For example, see the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in the Gospel of Luke.

Voting and abortion is a bit more complicated. Since the time of Christ, Christians have rejected most aborions, however, there were some moral gray areas, like maternal life, which the Church did not rule on until 1889, this papal decision was reinforced by the Second Vatican Council (eccumenical councils best reflect the Church acting infallibly) and finally, Pope John Paul II used the infallibility fo the Church (universal agreement of the Bishops) to declare that direct abortion is always a "grave moral disorder".

So abortion is always intrinsically evil for Catholics to obtain or perform. The difficult situations, like maternal health, are typically circumvented with a little sophistry (principles like "Double Effect"), but Papal Encyclical, the Universal Catechism, and the Dogmatic Constitution are in agreement, the teaching is absolute.

If something is an absolute, it is intrinsically evil. But voting is not direct, but more remote. You are not obtaining or giving an abortion, you are simply allowing others to make that decision. The Church is leaning heavily towards voting for abortion rights being complicency. This is not an infallible teaching, but a pretty strongly held one. Not quite as strong as, say, opposition to the death penalty, which is now written into the Catechism, but pretty strong.

In 2002 the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Doctrinal Note on Catholics in Political life. The note was authored by then Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and approved by then Pope John Paul II. The document very forcefully holds that a number of issues are fundemental and inalienable rights, and Catholics have to remember that what is at stack is the "essence of moral law". Abortion is on that list, but so is the development of a socially just economy, religious freedom, peace, and another of other issues.

This creates a problem for US Catholics. After all, no presidential candidate (or vice presidential candidate) held a public position on abortion (let alone the whole list) in alignment with the Church's. Three held intrinsically evil positions (*any* abortion is intrinsically evil) and one holds a position that the Church prudentially believes is complicent with intrinsic evil (Biden).

Under the seeming direction of now Pope Benedict, the USCCB introduced the concept of "proportionate reasons". Combining this with a concept called "limiting the harm" introduced by Pope John Paul II and there is some room for Catholics in voting on these issues. This was explaining the the Faithful Citizenship document issued by the USCCB (see #36 and #37 for an example).

In application, some Obama voters may be unfit to present themselves for communion - depending on *why* they voted (see SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS). Where the priest has seemingly overstepped Church teaching is in presuming to know the hearts and mines of his flock. I say "seemingly", because we have a report, not the letter itself. For all I know, the priest might have explained the distinction.

The last thing to understand is that individual priests, and even bishops, do not speak for the Church. The bishops are "authentic teachers" only when they are in communion with Rome. The outliers often get a lot of press, but the Mother Church generally takes a more long term, unifying view.

So, does this priest refuse communion to people who voted for pro war or pro death penalty candidates?

Wanda Jones,

"When I see one of them in those long robes I think of how many children have they raped."

With all due respect, saying this is no different from saying "when I see a black man, I think of how many people he's killed and how many illegitimate babies he's fathered"

Lee Atwater would be proud...

Ah, the return of 'impartial, who is anything but. Your statement regarding religious persecution is only correct if you are a Muslim or an atheist. Saying that any kind of Christian is persecuted in the US, let alone Catholics, is, well, a lie.

Catholics currently have a controlling majority in arguably the most powerful branch of government, and you want us to play tiny violins for you?

No, thanks.

Why would he take such an extreme position? Because - like all the fundamentalists I've ever known - he glories in believing he knows the mind of God better than anyone else.

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but who am I to judge? The most I can be sure of is that he's an asshole.

This is precisely why I left the Catholic Church, and why I chose not to replace it with any other church.

OK Rev. Jay Scott Newman, wave bye-bye to your church's tax-exempt status.

I don't particularly care about internal church politics, as in whether or not this priest is sanctioned by the hierarchy, and I REALLY don't care about what the official position of the Catholic Church is on abortion (neither, apparently, do a lot of Catholics, thus the voting data we've seen). But if the church is going to do unabashed political advocacy, then its tax exemption should be revoked, period, full stop. Either they repudiate this priest or start paying their way like the rest of us. (Actually I think they ought to pay their fracking way whether they repudiate this SOB or not.)

Full disclosure - I am an ex-Catholic.

Finally, as a plea to Democrats: please at least consider moderating on abortion.

You know, Maggie, you're not really dealing from a position of strength here. Obama won the Catholic vote. Abortion is legal and should remain so. Pro-choice is, by far, the preferred policy position of women. Maybe, as was pointed out above, there would be fewer abortions if religious types didn't freak out over high school sex ed, embrace the idiotic notion of abstinence and Catholic dogma still calls contraception (a life-saving, abortion-preventing measure) evil.

No one is calling for more abortions, so I can't really understand where "moderation" comes in, unless you're talking about compromising the life of the mother in extreme cases. Which is special.

Finally, as a plea to Democrats: please at least consider moderating on abortion.

It's very hard to take the Catholic Church seriously on their opposition to abortion, when they are similarly uncompromising on sex education and birth control. Effective birth (conception, in particular, meaning barriers, spermicide, and the pill) control reduces abortions -- if abortion is that big an evil, I would expect to see some movement on the birth control issue. Instead, we got bogus "science" attempting to claim that oral contraceptives cause actual abortions.

Put bluntly, the Catholic Church does not act like abortion is the incredible evil that they claim it is. The church, instead, acts as if what is most important is that sex should make babies.

But if you diddle little boys, I'm cool with that.
- Reverend Jackson

Put me down as another who is waiting for these self-described "men of God" to deny communion to anyone who supports the death penalty or to anyone who votes for someone who supports the death penalty.

Bad enough to require absolutely no first-hand knowledge of sexuality and its emotional connotations for your "priests" but this rank hypocrisy on life and death is just too much.

There actually has been debate within the Roman Catholic Church as to when "life" begins, i.e. when a soul attaches, but there's not too much debate about the soul departing on execution.

It's sad but abortion is a wedge issue. The supporters of a ban on abortion want to deny access to everyone, including victims of rape and incest. The various groups, one way or another, also believe that birth control methods are sinful and while they don't talk as much about it, it's apparent that they want to ban access.

In the 80's I worked overseas. During a visit to Uganda I discussed AIDS with a born again type. He felt people with AIDs had gotten what they deserved and opposed education (use of condoms for example) to help prevent the diease. These holier than thou "prolifers" ignored AIDS until 20 million people died and another 20 million became infected.

In Bangladesh in the 80's there was population emergency. There were something like 80 million people in this small country the size of Wisconsin. With the benign neglect fostered in part by our years of republican government, there are now 140 million people there as well as over a billion in India and China and the entire continent is covered with a brown pollution filled cloud.

Is this the future we want?

Um, Fitz, thanks for the tutorial. It leaves out, of course, all the other ways in which life may or may not be protected, choosing the termination of a pregnancy as the only relevant issue. But suppose not terminating the pregnancy will result in the death of the mother? Whose life gets precedence?

What about end-of-life issues? Why does the church seem to insist on extraordinary measures to preserve a life which cannot continue - as in terminal cancer or profound brain damage - while insisting that one must NOT intercede in pregnancy even to save the life of the mother?

And why must an American voter concentrate on abortion to the exclusion of the death penalty, welfare, and equal rights?

I'll tell you why. Because it's all bullshit. Church doctrine is neurotic and obsessive on all sexual matters.

Well said, Maggie, impartial, Mary, and Fitz. Knee-jerk reactions are distasteful on both sides of this issue. I commend your attempt to calmly explain the Church teaching on these difficult issues. While I strongly disagree with Fr. Newman's actions (assuming the report is accurate), it is just as wrong to cavalierly dismiss the concerns Catholics and others have on the abortion issue. Many Catholics (myself included) are not "abortion-only" voters, but we still have a profound concern about what is says about our society when we sanction the needless death of so many children.

The abortion issue is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the American working class. It works for both sides.

The congregation of that priest's church deserve him for being stupid enough to put someone else between them and "God".

WHAT A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITICAL FOOLS!!!

Thou shalt not commit adultery is a commandment. McCain wasn't divorced when he started his relationship with Cindy. Palin was preggers before she got married. Will they be denying communion to those who voted for McCain and Palin because they supported commandment breaking adulterers?

How many people did John McCain MURDER when he dropped bombs on Vietnam? Will they be denying communion to those who voted for McCain because they supported a commandment breaking murderer? (Last I checked, the Bible didn't make exceptions for murdering during war. The Catholics say "Thou shalt not kill. Period.)

Sarah Palin went around lying about pretty much everything. Commandment: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Will they be denying communion to those who voted for McCain/Palin because they supported commandment breaking liars?

If you followed the Catholics "religiously" -- then you can't vote for ANYONE.

And of course, being a bunch of hypocrites, they cherry pick which candidate and which commandment means more than others.

The one religious thing I know: There's a special place in hell reserved for hypocritical religious people of all religions who use their religion as a weapon to shove their idiocy on everyone else.

(Can you tell that I'm GRATEFULLY no longer a Catholic? What a warped bunch!!)

Let's see: Evangelicals are just fine with torture. The Mormons spent some $40 million to nudge California's Proposition 8 across the finish line. Catholics are pronouncing anathema on anyone who voted for Obama. Sounds like the Axis of Evil to me. Perhaps we should invade the Vatican, Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City on the premise that they possess Words of Mass Destruction.

Dear Bob .B,
Please think about what you wrote here: "we still have a profound concern about what is says about our society when we sanction the needless death of so many children" And it was OK, was it, to vote for W and his pre-emptive war? - there may have been a few children needlessly killed there too. W's Texas under his governance put the most prisoners to death; I think they may have been someone's children too.

PS Mandy Cat, I like you.

Note to non-Catholics: be aware that there are many, many versions of Catholicism under the umbrella of the Church. Even American Catholicism has a huge spectrum. But laughing at silly priests is a constant in all of them. Guy's a joke.

Petra: Last I checked, the Bible didn't make exceptions for murdering during war. The Catholics say "Thou shalt not kill. Period.

Actually, the Hebrew word used in the commandment is "murder," which refers to illegitimate killing. A word referring to all types of killing was available in Hebrew, but it wasn't used. The earliest translators of the scripture into English were a bit careless about that one, which has caused no end of misunderstanding.

Of course there's a whole other issue about whether what McCain did in dropping those bombs constituted murder anyway. My point is just to knock down the "the Bible says thou shalt not kill, period" myth.

Wooden T's - For what it is worth, I never voted for W, in part because of what you mention. I am not an abortion-only voter. I try to weigh all the issues and determine who comes closest to matching my concerns (no one matches all my concerns). But I am also a pro-life Catholic, and I think the fact that our society sanctions killing babies (especially, but not only, in the context of partial-birth abortions) is a grave concern. In my view, it is wrong.

Divine law! What a concept. It's at best an oxymoron.

Laws are made by human beings, notwithstanding the belief of some that they can be inspired by God. If any law is divine, its lawmaker must be divine.

Know any politicians who qualify?

But you are welcome at communion with open arms if you supported a candidate who supports torture, unilateral invasion of sovereign countries, lying, deception, character assassination, and a host (no pun intended) of other evils.

I say we end this country's economic and moral crisis by ending the tax exempt status for all catholic entities in this country. What kind of property tax can NYC get for that nice Cathedral they got.

Oh, and that money you put in the offering bowl? Sorry, not a deduction any more. Sorry.....

Arguably, John F. Kennedy's election was possible only because he stated plainly that the Church and/or Pope would not control his political agenda.

"I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office."

The current tendency of the Catholic Church to punish catholics for political acts threatens to marginalize the church and deny catholics a role in elective politics.

(especially, but not only, in the context of partial-birth abortions)

Just FYI and probably irrelevant to your position, but intact D&X-- what you call 'partial-birth abortion'-- is actually a safer (for the woman, if that matters) and less gruesome (wrt the fetus) procedure than the alternatives at a similar stage of pregnancy. To put it delicately, other methods don't produce an intact fetus, which is kinder to those who actually wanted a pregnancy that turned out not to be viable; it's more likely to give them a recognizable body to grieve. It was not invented to create an especially gruesome and sadistic means of 'murdering' fetuses, but to improve the physical safety and (in many cases) emotional comfort of the women involved.

Since you seem reasonably capable of dealing with nuance as far as this issue goes, it would probably be helpful to consider that the PBA terminology was specifically created to provoke outrage, not because it was actually the most brutal procedure available to terminate after the first trimester.

It's been said already, but Maggie, et al., why not allow birth control? Wouldn't that put the breaks on a lot of abortions? Also, in what way could Democrats compromise with you on this issue? I'd like details, please. I'm not trying to flame you, just understand your position.

This parish should be reported to the IRS. Contributions should not be tax deductible.

People like ***Maggie***the catholic above and Citizen pain above her are so quick to draw lines of condemnation from the actions of one bigot in the pulpit. All religions have one of these goobers. To Maggie in her closed mind is the image of last trimester women smiling and jumping to get the evil child out of their bellies, not the 11y/o raped by her uncle who cannot deliver a baby without risking death,...or the mother of two young boys who suddenly gets ill and must have an abortion or will die leaving the boys without a mother...to her it's always "God did it on Purpose...live with it".

To the ***citizen pain*** types it is the council of hooded men roaming the streets peering into windows and taking notes to deliver to the inner circle of monks vowing world domination and condemnation sending out its minions to point the finger of the avenger.

Maggie is beyond help, she listens to those who only talk yet accomplish nothing. Here's one for You Maggie...The number of abortions always...always decrease under a democratic president....Obama made it a part of the dem platform this year that they would make abortions, legal, safe, and RARE by decreasing the conditions for unwanted pregnancies, adoption funds, education funds, retraining, counseling, all rejected by republicans, to decrease abortions but not jailing young mothers. There were just as many abortions before R v W... Maggie... as after, so you "culture of death" is pure propaganda. It became legal as a right to choose, in order to make it safe because legal or not, it still went on. Last semester abortions are virtually non-existent unless the health of the mother is threatened but you just accept all propaganda because it adopts to your preconceived ignorant opinion.

I suggest watching "Religilous" and note the catholic priests in Rome making fun of fanatic Catholics who've been present all through the ages condemning somebody for something...excommunicating divorcees regardless of confessions. No one takes abortion lightly but it should be their choice not your's or that idiot, authoritarian, condemning priest. The majority of Americans don't even think like you or accept your beliefs and don't consider cells on a petri dish, or a fertilized egg a human life. I am more concerned about the millions of dead and displaced and disabled children Bush had murdered in Iraq than the millions of aborted fertilized eggs you consider human life. People like you would vote to allow the ones who do such horrors to be elected because they spout to allow fertilized eggs of rapists to be brought to life. Which is really the "culture of death"?

Maybe what would solve all of our problems, would be to quit wanting everyone to believe the way we do..
So, here I am, wanting you to see things my way.

I personally could never have an abortion, but I would never presume to tell anyone else what to do about her pregnancy. Advice, maybe...if asked for.. but it should be a personal decision. That, Maggie, is why I am pro-choice.

I also think the government should be out of it completely. No laws, for or against!

I wonder if this priest is also denying communion to parishioners who voted for pro-choice candidates in the republican primary?

Pro-choice advocates should refuse to be vendors to Catholic priests.

I personally could never have an abortion, but I would never presume to tell anyone else what to do about her pregnancy.

I always love this one. It's the "I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to judge anyone else for having an abortion, but let me go on record as stating that I think my morals are superior to the folks who do." I imagine that almost all the women who've had abortions never thought they would, either, and probably quite a few of them said the exact same thing you just said.

Look, if you're really pro-choice, just say so simply without distancing yourself from that position. Whether or not you've had, might have, will have or would never have an abortion really doesn't matter to anyone here but you.

What about candidates who're against institutionalised child abuse? Surely the bishop should have railed against them too?

As an ex-Catholic, one of the few things I always liked about Catholicism was the slippery old sacrament of confession. As a kid I always treated it as a 'get out of jail free' card. You could get up to all sorts of venial, Cardinal & mortal sinning through the week, then rediscover your regret for such transgressions promptly on a Saturday and go to confession, solemnly intoning: "Bless me Father for I have sinned, it's been one week since my last confession...". Afterwards, you'd do your penance (invariably a series of prayers) and thus, soul-cleansed, piously receive Communion on Sunday, under the discreetly admiring gaze of family, friends, nuns, neighbours & fellow churchgoers. However doctrinally flawed that approach was and is, to me, as a determinedly sinful adolescent, it seemed like a perfect way to have my cake and eat it too. My mother later told me that she similarly took her (forbidden) birth control pills at noon, thus enabling her to re-discover her penitance for that mortal sin Saturday afternoon, confess, receive Communion, and take her Sunday pill immediately afterwards.

I'd hazard the guess that it's also the approach taken by equally 'sinful', conservative Catholics like Andrew Sullivan, whose expressly forbidden sex & romantic life, Obama advocacy and other transgressions are fully engaged throughout the week, before a suddenly contrite, late Saturday confession, a boring Saturday night, then early Sunday mass & communion, promptly followed by another full week of sinning.

Later, unlike many ex-Catholics, I never had a problem with residual guilt. Rather, after years of practice, I had to unlearn the bad habits of timely confession and phony contrition.

I guess it's one thing I have in common with John McCain...

I have never heard of a priest saying you should go to confession before taking communion. When I was young we went to confession on Sat (though only every three months in my family). I never had a priest ask how many communions I took since the earliest sin. I think this priest is inventing dogma.

In terms of Catholic theology and canon law, grave unconfessed sin is a bar to communion, and material cooperation in abortion is even more serious, and is an act the commission of which effects excommunication immediately and automatically. So, in general terms (before getting to the application to the specific voting behavior in question), the priest is not "inventing dogma", but articulating the fairly clear doctrines of the Church.

OTOH, the Church heirarchy has stated that while it is unacceptable for a Catholic to vote for a candidate because of pro-choice views (a position, IMO, of debatable theological validity unless it is advanced as an independent teaching in and of itself), it is acceptable to vote for a candidate with such views for "proportional reasons", so this priests suggestion that it is "material cooperation in intrinsic evil" to vote for a pro-choice candidate when there is a pro-life candidate in the race would seem to be highly dubious not only under the more general teachings of the Church, but even under the specific pronouncements of the heirarchy on this precise issue.

"Look, if you're really pro-choice, just say so simply without distancing yourself from that position. Whether or not you've had, might have, will have or would never have an abortion really doesn't matter to anyone here but you."

Exactly! shortstop, so... why does everyone else's choice bother you so much?

The U.S. Catholic Church seems to be making a fairly concerted protest against Obama; I've seen quite a few articles since the election where one diocesan spokespriest or another claims that with Obama's promised signing of the FOCA, all Catholic hospitals will have to shut down since they refuse to perform abortions. Is that really a possibility or just propaganda?

BTW, I attended services at a Southern Baptist church last Sunday; the pastor said that God was pleased with the choice of barack Obama. I was surprised.

"But it does strike me as odd to think of priests using Communion as some kind of political weapon in a culture war."

Doesn't strike me as odd at all. Wrong, but not odd. One of the principal function of churches and religion in human civilization has always been to serve and help legitimize power structures.

Communion has been used as a political weapon for centuries, but denying it was the province of the Pope, not of the priests. Excommunication.

Of course, if you have the means, like Henry VIII, you can just start your own church.

My ex was an Irish Catholic who would be perfectly in accord with Newman's proclamation. They have the same mindset. I could never understand why she thought so little of American values and adhered so closely to Catholic doctrine. It was as if she turned off the thinking part of her brain whenever anything that touched on church dogma came up.

But since the proclamations of the church are unappealable, so are the proclamations of the IRS, and I hope that one of their people gives Mr. Newman a visit to explain to him the facts of the matter.

cmdicely -
You're exactly right about abortion and automatic excommunication, but there's an all-important qualifier. According to a Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) article from June 19th 2008:

"Roman Catholic doctrine condemns deliberate abortion as a mortal sin in all cases and imposes automatic excommunication upon anyone who obtains one or knowingly helps someone else do so." HOWEVER "The excommunication usually can be lifted by ordinary confession and appropriate penance."

Good old Confession...it's the sacrament that just keeps giving.

Wonder how old Father Newman is. Is he one of those young fogeys the seminaries are so busy turning out these days?
Maybe his next trick will be to tell off those of his parishoners with a ten year marriage and only two children to show for it.
Then he can get a list of Catholic doctors and pharmacists and demand that they foreswear prescribing or filling prescriptions for birth control pills.
And that's about the time he'll get quietly transferred to a chaplaincy at a hospital or some other job with the bow-and-arrow squad.
Meanwhile, his parishoners can direct their tithes to the local Catholic charity until the diocese ships him out.

Motherfuckers suckin' off the teat of hard working Americans! I'd love to see all church's tax exempt status revoked!

Good for Jay Newman. I've always thought that the people best placed to advise Americans on their responsibilities as citizens of a democracy are those whose first allegiance is to a foreign witch-king in a dress.

What a charming sect. Take away their tax exemption and let them reach a little deeper into their pockets the next time they're forced to pay damages for their priests raping little boys.

toowearyforoutrage: Is voting itself "dirty"?

Well, if you ask some of the more ultramontane types...

My Roman Catholic mother lives in Greenville, and attends Prince of Peace parish, the fast-growing parish of the Greenville suburbs, which is now the largest parish in the state. St. Mary's Church is located downtown, where there were few Catholics. I've attended services at St. Mary's a few times in the 1990s when visiting, especially when Prince of Peace was building its monstrously big (and amazingly ugly) new building.

Greenville has grown enormously in the past 20 years, when my parents moved there. SC is a right-to-work state, ferociously anti-union, and lots of old rust-belt companies, like the company for which my father worked, relocated there in the 1980s to find cheap land and cheap labor. Lots of the people who moved with those companies, like my parents, were Catholics.

And yes, the Catholics are very much trying to compete with the Baptists there ["keeping up with the Joneses," i.e. Bob Jones University, is quite accurate, as one commenter noted above]. There are a bazillion different Baptist churches there, and they provide an incredible network of social services, from child care to job training, from senior services to full-service gyms. There are lots of Baptist touches even in the Catholic Mass in SC--way more hand-holding than in the North, and services that encourage Pentecostal-type experiences, such as speaking in tongues.

Catholics in the Piedmont are acutely aware of being a minority in the Baptist South, but now that there are more of them than there used to be, people are taking a real pride in all of the bead-jingling of their faith: there's a good-sized turnout each week for praying the Rosary before Mass. I go to Mass with Mom every time I visit, since it keeps peace in the family, and I like the anthropological field work aspect of attending with her.

Since the 19th century, the Catholic Church has failed to come to terms with modernity, and especially with technology. There was a brief window in the papacy of John XXIII and even early in that of his successor Paul VI, that the Church would make a great leap forward, but too many bishops could only look to the past, and not to people's lives in the present, let alone to the future.

Even though I am no longer a believer, I still appreciate the Church's advocacy for peace (the Berrigans), and for worker rights (Dorothy Day). But the Church supported fascists and authoritarians too often (not surprising given its hierarchical structure).

Studebaker hawk:

The commandment language and Hebrew did referr to murder -- you're right.

But the R. Catholics use "Kill" in their version of the commandments. They are broader.

No killing. No exceptions.

Just FYI.