http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081113/ap_on_re_us/obama_catholics


SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters

FOX News COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.

But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.

According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County — traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas — went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama.

"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."

Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.

"Father Newman is off base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."

A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.

"I don't understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who's a pro-abortion candidate," said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. "You're talking about the murder of innocent beings."

I personally think the Catholic church needs to "protect" the living children from there own priests first!


"When Jesus said suffer all the little children, come unto me, thats not what he was talkin about father!"---GC

"Some say life begins at conception, I say life began about a Billion years ago, and its a contenious process"---GC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXvDXVhqfU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Djohakx_FE&feature=related

Are you even remotely surprised it came to this???

Yeah, the Catholic Chruch does not support abortion. This is news to you?
And if you believe in what the Church teaches, then you cannot support a candidate that supports abortion. And if you voted for one, then you have taken a direct action against Church doctrine,against the Church itself.
It's their Church, their rules, just like any other organization. Abide by the rules or leave.

My reaction, again those with no uterus have no business!

My father's side of the family has always been Catholic... and Democratic. Go figure

No business unless the child is born--then it's very much a business--well, at least for 18 years. I don't have any children but to suggest it's no man's business: "unless" is a bit out there.

-Drew

They don't support abortion, just having sex with our small boys.

Because on other issues, the Church is usually a little bit to the left. Community Service, Charity to the poor,the homeless, the hungry, Social Justice.

Yeah, that guy, Rev. Wright, Ted Haggard, Rev. Jackson---seems like you give some guys the title of Pastor, Father, or Rev. and some amazingly insensitive things come forth, huh?

-Drew

Where I was coming from was that the Catholic church is a and always has been a partriachal organization that has used fear to control the masses, and in this use of fear has attempted to control that which is deemed as power that women have to create by stating it is imoral. If men could get pregnant the world would be a different place and I can imagine this would not even be an issue.

Its all a total load of BS, a mans character should be his badge of honor, not some bs title. Its junk for these domestic terriorists to hide behind a book

Well last I knew the pope didn't run America and the Church doesn't tell me how to vote.This Catholic is pro choice and voted Obama so stick that in the pope mobile.

I agree with you. But there needs to be clean separation of church and state. If not every religion should be given Equal say in said policy. One president is the Electoral college. It is suppose to give equal representation to the states based on population. The same should apply to the church. JMO

If the pope ran this country... I'd move

I'd be right behind ya.

What would Jesus do?

Not deny all of us Obama supporters pleasure of munching on his body, that's for sure!

I didn't go through all of those years of CCD to have some priest say that I can't receive holy communion because of who I voted for.

Jesus is a lover not a hater.

Yes he is. In my beliefs Its a sin to judge others only he can. Free will!!!! He wants you to accept him unconditionally(That means no outside influences)..Something to think about..

I read this article last night. It's ironic that the same people that say they vote against abortion because of the Catholic church are the same people that use birth control when the Catholic church was so very much against it.

Many people that I know are Catholic Democrats, btw.
I will never be one.

I know somebody that went to his Catholic church a few weeks ago. The priest told the congregation that they will no longer be Catholics if they voted for Obama. He's joining a Lutheran church now and having his baby baptized there.

Our newspaper did an investigation on a Catholic church here.
The priest compared Obama to Hitler and said that anybody voting for Obama is going to hell.